Using in vivo bioluminescence imaging to shed light on cancer biology

Luciferases are light-emitting enzymes that have been used as reporters of biological function for several decades, and have more recently been used as reporters for the study of biological processes in living animals. Although these enzymes appear to have evolved independently in different species, they are all oxygenases that require energy, a chemical substrate, and oxygen. The technologies of detecting their weak bioluminescent signals in the bodies of living rodent models of human biology and disease, comprise the optical imaging method called in vivo bioluminescence imaging (BLI). BLI has been applied to a number of questions in cancer research, including studies of tumor burden, response to therapy, assessment of gene expression, and development of metastatic lesions. The considerations necessary for evaluating image data obtained by this method, the advances in technology development, and recent applications in the study of cancer are the focus of this paper.