Longitudinal in Utero Analysis of Engrailed-1 Knockout Mouse Embryonic Phenotypes Using High-Frequency Ultrasound. Academic Article uri icon

Overview

abstract

  • Large-scale international efforts to generate and analyze loss-of-function mutations in each of the approximately 20,000 protein-encoding gene mutations are ongoing using the "knockout" mouse as a model organism. Because one-third of gene knockouts are expected to result in embryonic lethality, it is important to develop non-invasive in utero imaging methods to detect and monitor mutant phenotypes in mouse embryos. We describe the utility of 3-D high-frequency (40-MHz) ultrasound (HFU) for longitudinal in utero imaging of mouse embryos between embryonic days (E) 11.5 and E14.5, which represent critical stages of brain and organ development. Engrailed-1 knockout (En1-ko) mouse embryos and their normal control littermates were imaged with HFU in 3-D, enabling visualization of morphological phenotypes in the developing brains, limbs and heads of the En1-ko embryos. Recently developed deep learning approaches were used to automatically segment the embryonic brain ventricles and bodies from the 3-D HFU images, allowing quantitative volumetric analyses of the En1-ko brain phenotypes. Taken together, these results show great promise for the application of longitudinal 3-D HFU to analyze knockout mouse embryos in utero.

publication date

  • October 22, 2022

Research

keywords

  • Brain
  • Imaging, Three-Dimensional

Identity

PubMed Central ID

  • PMC9712241

Scopus Document Identifier

  • 85140747711

Digital Object Identifier (DOI)

  • 10.1016/j.ultrasmedbio.2022.09.008

PubMed ID

  • 36283941

Additional Document Info

volume

  • 49

issue

  • 1