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Background/objectives: Bone marrow (BM) adipocytes are critical in progressing solid tumor metastases and hematological malignancies across pediatric to aging populations. Single-point biopsies remain the gold standard for monitoring BM diseases, including hematologic malignancies, but are limited in capturing the full complexity of loco-regional and global BM microenvironments. Non-invasive imaging techniques like Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), could offer valuable alternatives for real-time evaluation of BM diseases in both preclinical translational and clinical studies., Methods: We developed a preclinical proton density fat fraction (PDFF) MRI technique for quantitative BM composition assessment, focusing on fat fraction (FF) within mouse femurs. We validated this method using aging mice and young mice subjected to 10 Gy X-ray irradiation, compared with young unirradiated mice as controls. Water-fat phantoms (0% to 100% fat content) were used to optimize the imaging sequence, and immunohistochemical (IHC) staining with H&E validates equivalent adipose content in the femur BM regions., Results: Significant differences in FF were observed across age groups (p = 0.001 for histology and p = 0.0002 for PDFF) and between irradiated and control mice (p = 0.005 for histology and p = 0.002 for PDFF). A strong correlation (R 2 ∼ 0.84) between FF values from PDFF and histology validates the accuracy of the technique., Conclusions: These findings demonstrate the potential of PDFF MRI as a non-invasive real-time imaging biomarker for quantifying BM fat fraction in preclinical mice model studies, particularly in evaluating the effects of aging, disease progression, and irradiation therapy in pediatric and translational oncology research.

Total marrow irradiation (TMI) has significantly improved radiation conditioning for hematopoietic cell transplantation in hematologic diseases by reducing conditioning-induced toxicities and improving survival outcomes in relapsed/refractory patients. Recently, preclinical three-dimensional image-guided TMI has been developed to enhance mechanistic understanding of the role of TMI and to support the development of experimental therapeutics. However, a dosimetric comparison between preclinical and clinical TMI reveals that the preclinical TMI treatment lacks the ability to reduce the dose to some of the vital organs that are very close to the skeletal system and thus limits the ability to evaluate radiobiological relevance. To overcome this limit, we introduce a novel Sparse Orthogonal Collimator (SOC)-based TMI and evaluate its ability to enhance dosimetric conformality. The SOC-TMI-based dose modulation technique significantly improves TMI treatment planning by reducing radiation exposures to critical organs that are close to the skeletal system that leads to reducing the gap between clinical and preclinical TMI., Competing Interests: The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest., (Copyright © 2022 Abdelhamid, Jiang, Zuro, Liu, Madabushi, Ghimire, Wong, Saldi, Fulcheri, Zucchetti, Pierini, Sheng, Aristei and Hui.)

Purpose: Recent initial findings suggest that radiation therapy improves blood perfusion and cellular chemotherapy uptake in mice with leukemia. However, the ability of radiation therapy to influence drug accumulation in the extracellular bone marrow tissue is unknown, due in part to a lack of methodology. This study developed longitudinal quantitative multiphoton microscopy (L-QMPM) to characterize the bone marrow vasculature (BMV) and drug accumulation in the extracellular bone marrow tissue before and after radiation therapy in mice bearing leukemia., Methods and Materials: We developed a longitudinal window implant for L-QMPM imaging of the calvarium BMV before, 2 days after, and 5 days after total body irradiation (TBI). Live time-lapsed images of a fluorescent drug surrogate were used to obtain measurements, including tissue wash-in slope (WIS tissue ) to measure extracellular drug accumulation. We performed L-QMPM imaging on healthy C57BL/6 (WT) mice, as well as mice bearing acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) and acute myeloid leukemia (AML)., Results: Implants had no effects on calvarium dose, and parameters for wild-type untreated mice were stable during imaging. We observed decreased vessel diameter, vessel blood flow, and WIS tissue with the onset of AML and ALL. Two to 10 Gy TBI increased WIS tissue and vessel diameter 2 days after radiation therapy in all 3 groups of mice and increased single-vessel blood flow in mice bearing ALL and AML. Increased WIS tissue was observed 5 days after 10 Gy TBI or 4 Gy split-dose TBI (2 treatments of 2 Gy spaced 3 days apart)., Conclusions: L-QMPM provides stable functional assessments of the BMV. Nonmyeloablative and myeloablative TBI increases extracellular drug accumulation in the leukemic bone marrow 2 to 5 days posttreatment, likely through improved blood perfusion and drug exchange from the BMV to the extravascular tissue. Our data show that neo-adjuvant TBI at doses from 2 Gy to 10 Gy conditions the BMV to improve drug transport to the bone marrow., (Copyright © 2021 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: Total marrow irradiation (TMI) has significantly advanced radiation conditioning for hematopoietic cell transplantation in hematologic malignancies by reducing conditioning-induced toxicities and improving survival outcomes in relapsed/refractory patients. However, the relapse rate remains high, and the lack of a preclinical TMI model has hindered scientific advancements. To accelerate TMI translation to the clinic, we developed a TMI delivery system in preclinical models., Methods and Materials: A Precision X-RAD SmART irradiator was used for TMI model development. Images acquired with whole-body contrast-enhanced computed tomography (CT) were used to reconstruct and delineate targets and vital organs for each mouse. Multiple beam and CT-guided Monte Carlo-based plans were performed to optimize doses to the targets and to vary doses to the vital organs. Long-term engraftment and reconstitution potential were evaluated by a congenic bone marrow transplantation (BMT) model and serial secondary BMT, respectively. Donor cell engraftment was measured using noninvasive bioluminescence imaging and flow cytometry., Results: Multimodal imaging enabled identification of targets (skeleton and spleen) and vital organs (eg, lungs, gut, liver). In contrast to total body irradiation (TBI), TMI treatment allowed variation of radiation dose exposure to organs relative to the target dose. Dose reduction mirrored that in clinical TMI studies. Similar to TBI, mice treated with different TMI regimens showed full long-term donor engraftment in primary BMT and second serial BMT. The TBI-treated mice showed acute gut damage, which was minimized in mice treated with TMI., Conclusions: A novel multimodal image guided preclinical TMI model is reported here. TMI conditioning maintained long-term engraftment with reconstitution potential and reduced organ damage. Therefore, this TMI model provides a unique opportunity to study the therapeutic benefit of reduced organ damage and BM dose escalation to optimize treatment regimens in BMT and hematologic malignancies., (Copyright © 2021 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Purpose: Although vascular alterations in solid tumor malignancies are known to decrease therapeutic delivery, the effects of leukemia-induced bone marrow vasculature (BMV) alterations on therapeutic delivery are not well known. Additionally, functional quantitative measurements of the leukemic BMV during chemotherapy and radiation therapy are limited, largely due to a lack of high-resolution imaging techniques available preclinically. This study develops a murine model using compartmental modeling for quantitative multiphoton microscopy (QMPM) to characterize the malignant BMV before and during treatment., Methods and Materials: Using QMPM, live time-lapsed images of dextran leakage from the local BMV to the surrounding bone marrow of mice bearing acute lymphoblastic leukemia (ALL) were taken and fit to a 2-compartment model to measure the transfer rate (K trans ), fractional extracellular extravascular space (ν ec ), and vascular permeability parameters, as well as functional single-vessel characteristics. In response to leukemia-induced BMV alterations, the effects of 2 to 4 Gy low-dose radiation therapy (LDRT) on the BMV, drug delivery, and mouse survival were assessed post-treatment to determine whether neoadjuvant LDRT before chemotherapy improves treatment outcome., Results: Mice bearing ALL had significantly altered K trans , increased ν ec , and increased permeability compared with healthy mice. Angiogenesis, decreased single-vessel perfusion, and decreased vessel diameter were observed. BMV alterations resulted in disease-dependent reductions in cellular uptake of Hoechst dye. LDRT to mice bearing ALL dilated BMV, increased single-vessel perfusion, and increased daunorubicin uptake by ALL cells. Consequently, LDRT administered to mice before receiving nilotinib significantly increased survival compared with mice receiving LDRT after nilotinib, demonstrating the importance of LDRT conditioning before therapeutic administration., Conclusion: The developed QMPM enables single-platform assessments of the pharmacokinetics of fluorescent agents and characterization of the BMV. Initial results suggest BMV alterations after neoadjuvant LDRT may contribute to enhanced drug delivery and increased treatment efficacy for ALL. The developed QMPM enables observations of the BMV for use in ALL treatment optimization., (Copyright © 2020 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Hypofractionated stereotactic body radiotherapy treatments (SBRT) have demonstrated impressive results for the treatment of a variety of solid tumors. The role of tumor supporting vasculature damage in treatment outcome for SBRT has been intensely debated and studied. Fast, non-invasive, longitudinal assessments of tumor vasculature would allow for thorough investigations of vascular changes correlated with SBRT treatment response. In this paper, we present a novel theranostic system which incorporates a fluorescence molecular imager into a commercial, preclinical, microCT-guided, irradiator and was designed to quantify tumor vascular response (TVR) to targeted radiotherapy. This system overcomes the limitations of single-timepoint imaging modalities by longitudinally assessing spatiotemporal differences in intravenously-injected ICG kinetics in tumors before and after high-dose radiation. Changes in ICG kinetics were rapidly quantified by principle component (PC) analysis before and two days after 10 Gy targeted tumor irradiation. A classifier algorithm based on PC data clustering identified pixels with TVR. Results show that two days after treatment, a significant delay in ICG clearance as measured by exponential decay (40.5±16.1% P=0.0405 Paired t-test n=4) was observed. Changes in the mean normalized first and second PC feature pixel values (PC1 & PC2) were found (P=0.0559, 0.0432 paired t-test), suggesting PC based analysis accurately detects changes in ICG kinetics. The PC based classification algorithm yielded spatially-resolved TVR maps. Our first-of-its-kind theranostic system, allowing automated assessment of TVR to SBRT, will be used to better understand the role of tumor perfusion in metastasis and local control.

Molecular imaging is becoming essential for precision targeted radiation therapy, yet progress is hindered from a lack of integrated imaging and treatment systems. We report the development of a prototype positron emission tomography (PET) scanner integrated into a commercial cone beam computed tomography (CBCT) based small animal irradiation system for molecular-image-guided, targeted external beam radiation therapy. The PET component consists of two rotating Hamamatsu time-of-flight PET modules positioned with a bore diameter of 101.6 mm and a radial field-of-view of 53.1 mm. The measured energy resolution after linearity correction at 511 KeV was 12.9% and the timing resolution was 283.6 ps. The measured spatial resolutions at the field-of-view center and 5 mm off the radial center were 2.6 mm × 2.6 mm × 1.6 mm and 2.6 mm × 2.6 mm × 2.7 mm respectively. 18 F-Fluorodeoxyglucose-based PET imaging of a NEMA NU 4-2008 phantom resolved cylindrical volumes with diameters as small as 3 mm. To validate the system in-vivo, we performed 64 Cu-DOTA-M5A PET and computed tomography (CT) imaging of carcinoembryonic antigen (CEA)-positive colorectal cancer in athymic nude mice and compared the results with a commercially available Siemens Inveon PET/CT system. The prototype PET system performed comparably to the Siemens system for identifying the location, size, and shape of tumors. Regions of heterogeneous 64 Cu-DOTA-M5A uptake were observed. Using 64 Cu-DOTA-M5A PET and CT images, a Monte Carlo-based radiation treatment plan was created to escalate the dose to the 64 Cu-DOTA-M5A-based, highly active, biological target volume while largely sparing the normal tissue. Results demonstrate the feasibility of molecular-image-guided treatment plans using the prototype theranostic system.

Hematopoietic stem cells (HSCs) are multipotent cells capable of differentiating into all types of blood cells. The important feature of the HSCs is their ability to repopulate the complete blood cells after BM ablation. For clinical application, cord blood derived HSCs and G-CSF mobilized peripheral blood HSCs are good alternative to bone marrow HSCs. For immunological and hematological studies the obvious choice of model organism is Mouse. Therefore, understanding HSCs in murine model is important. In this chapter, we describe the common/currently used methods to isolate and identify human and mouse HSCs.