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Idiopathic pulmonary fibrosis (IPF) is a chronic lung disease resulting in irreversible scarring within the lungs. However, the lack of biomarkers that enable real-time assessment of disease activity remains a challenge in providing efficient clinical decision-making and optimal patient care in IPF. Fibronectin (FN) is highly expressed in fibroblastic foci of the IPF lung where active extracellular matrix (ECM) deposition occurs. Functional upstream domain (FUD) tightly binds the N-terminal 70-kilodalton domain of FN that is crucial for FN assembly. In this study, we first demonstrate the capacity of PEGylated FUD (PEG-FUD) to target FN deposition in human IPF tissue ex vivo. We subsequently radiolabeled PEG-FUD with 64 Cu and monitored its spatiotemporal biodistribution via μPET/CT imaging in mice using the bleomycin-induced model of pulmonary injury and fibrosis. We demonstrated [ 64 Cu]Cu-PEG-FUD uptake 3 and 11 days following bleomycin treatment, suggesting that radiolabeled PEG-FUD holds promise as an imaging probe in aiding the assessment of fibrotic lung disease activity.

Objectives: Non-invasive methods for monitoring arterial health and identifying early injury to optimize treatment for patients are desirable. The objective of this study was to demonstrate the use of an adaptive Bayesian regularized Lagrangian carotid strain imaging (ABR-LCSI) algorithm for monitoring of atherogenesis in a murine model and examine associations between the ultrasound strain measures and histology., Methods: Ultrasound radiofrequency (RF) data were acquired from both the right and left common carotid artery (CCA) of 10 (5 male and 5 female) ApoE tm1Unc/J mice at 6, 16 and 24 wk. Lagrangian accumulated axial, lateral and shear strain images and three strain indices-maximum accumulated strain index (MASI), peak mean strain of full region of interest (ROI) index (PMSRI) and strain at peak axial displacement index (SPADI)-were estimated using the ABR-LCSI algorithm. Mice were euthanized (n = 2 at 6 and 16 wk, n = 6 at 24 wk) for histology examination., Results: Sex-specific differences in strain indices of mice at 6, 16 and 24 wk were observed. For male mice, axial PMSRI and SPADI changed significantly from 6 to 24 wk (mean axial PMSRI at 6 wk = 14.10 ± 5.33% and that at 24 wk = -3.03 ± 5.61%, p < 0.001). For female mice, lateral MASI increased significantly from 6 to 24 wk (mean lateral MASI at 6 wk = 10.26 ± 3.13% and that at 24 wk = 16.42 ± 7.15%, p = 0.048). Both cohorts exhibited strong associations with ex vivo histological findings (male mice: correlation between number of elastin fibers and axial PMSRI: r s  = 0.83, p = 0.01; female mice: correlation between shear MASI and plaque score: r s  = 0.77, p = 0.009)., Conclusion: The results indicate that ABR-LCSI can be used to measure arterial wall strain in a murine model and that changes in strain are associated with changes in arterial wall structure and plaque formation., (Copyright © 2023 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Objective: In humans, arterial grayscale ultrasound texture features independently predict adverse cardiovascular disease (CVD) events and change with medical interventions. We performed this study to examine how grayscale ultrasound texture features and elastin fibers change in plaque-free segments of the arterial wall in a murine model prone to atherosclerosis., Methods: A total of 10 Apoe tm1Unc/J mice ( n  = 5 male, n  = 5 female) were imaged at 6, 16, and 24 weeks of age. Two mice were euthanized at 6 and 16 weeks and the remaining mice at 24 weeks. Texture features were extracted from the ultrasound images of the distal 1.0 mm of the common carotid artery wall, and elastin measures were extracted from histology images. Two-way analysis of variance was used to evaluate associations between week, sex, and grayscale texture features. Texture feature and elastin number comparisons between weeks were conducted using the sex-by-week two-way interaction contrasts. Sex-specific correlations between the number of elastin fibers and grayscale texture features were analyzed by conducting non-parametric Spearman's rank correlation analyses., Results: Arterial wall homogeneity changed significantly in male mice from 6 to 24 weeks, with a mean (SD) of 0.14 (0.03) units at 6 weeks and 0.18 (0.03) units at 24 weeks ( p  = 0.026). Spatial gray level dependence matrices-homogeneity (SGLD-HOM) also correlated with carotid artery plaque score ( r s  = 0.707, p  = 0.033). Elastin fibers in the region of interest decreased from 6 to 24 weeks for both male and female mice, although only significantly in male mice. The mean (SD) number of elastin fibers for male mice was 5.32 (1.50) at 6 weeks and 3.59 (0.38) at 24 weeks ( p  = 0.023). For female mice, the mean (SD) number of elastin fibers was 3.98 (0.38) at 6 weeks and 3.46 (0.19) at 24 weeks ( p  = 0.051)., Conclusion: Grayscale ultrasound texture features that are associated with increased risk for CVD events in humans were used in a murine model, and the grayscale texture feature SGLD-HOM was shown to change in male mice from 6 weeks to 24 weeks. Structural alterations of the arterial wall (change in elastin fiber number) were observed during this time and may differ by sex., Competing Interests: CM: W. L. Gore & Associates contracted research grants to the University of Wisconsin-Madison, consulting Acoustic Range Estimates. TV: Research agreement with Fujifilm VisualSonics (Toronto, CA) to acquire photoacoustic radiofrequency data not used in this paper. The remaining 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., (© 2023 Mitchell, Al Mukaddim, Liu, Graham, Eickhoff, Weichmann, Tattersall, Korcarz, Stein, Varghese and Eliceiri.)

Neurotensin receptor 1 (NTSR1) can stimulate tumor proliferation through neurotensin (NTS) activation and are overexpressed by a variety of cancers. The high binding affinity of NTS/NTSR1 makes radiolabeled NTS derivatives interesting for cancer diagnosis and staging. Internalization of NTS/NTSR1 also suggests therapeutic application with high LET alpha particles and low energy electrons. We investigated the therapeutic efficacy of [ 58m Co]Co-NOTA-NT-20.3 in vivo using murine models xenografted with NTSR1-positive HT29 human colorectal adenocarcinoma cells, and utilized [ 55 Co]Co-NOTA-NT-20.3 for dosimetry., Methods: Targeting properties and cytotoxicity of [ 55/58m Co]Co-NOTA-NT-20.3 were assessed with HT29 cells. Female nude mice were xenografted with HT29 tumors and administered [ 55 Co or 58m Co]Co-NOTA-NT-20.3 to evaluate pharmacokinetics or for therapy, respectively. Dosimetry calculations followed the Medical Internal Radiation Dose (MIRD) formalism and human absorbed dose rate per unit activity were obtained from OpenDose. The pilot therapy study consisted of two groups (each N = 3) receiving 110 ± 15 MBq and 26 ± 6 MBq [ 58m Co]Co-NOTA-NT-20.3 one week after tumor inoculation, and control (N = 3). Tumor sizes and masses were measured twice a week after therapy. Complete blood count and kidney histology were also performed to assess toxicity., Results: HPLC measured radiochemical purity of [ 55,58m Co]Co-NOTA-NT-20.3 > 99 %. Labeled compounds retained NTS targeting properties. [ 58m Co]Co-NOTA-NT-20.3 exhibited cytotoxicity for HT29 cells and was >15× more potent than [ 58m Co]CoCl 2 . Xenografted tumors responded modestly to administered doses, but mice showed no signs of radiotoxicity. Absorbed dose to tumor and kidney with 110 MBq [ 58m Co]Co-NOTA-NT-20.3 were 0.6 Gy and 0.8 Gy, respectively, and other organs received less than half of the absorbed dose to tumor. Off-target radiation dose from cobalt-58g was small but reduces the therapeutic window., Conclusion: The enhanced in vitro cytotoxicity and high tumor-to-background led us to investigate the therapeutic efficacy of [ 58m Co]Co-NOTA-NT-20.3 in vivo. Although we were unable to induce tumor response commensurate with [ 177 Lu]Lu-NT127 (NLys-Lys-Pro-Tyr-Tle-Leu) studies involving similar time-integrated activity, the absence of observed toxicity may constitute an opportunity for targeting vectors with improved uptake and/or retention to avoid the aftereffects of other high-LET radioactive emissions. Future studies with higher uptake, activity and/or multiple dosing regimens are warranted. The theranostic approach employed in this work was crucial for dosimetry analysis., Competing Interests: Declaration of competing interest The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper., (Copyright © 2023 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

Adaptive Bayesian regularized cardiac strain imaging (ABR-CSI) uses raw radiofrequency signals to estimate myocardial wall contractility as a surrogate measure of relative tissue elasticity incorporating regularization in the Bayesian sense. We determined the feasibility of using ABR-CSI -derived strain for in vivo longitudinal monitoring of cardiac remodeling in a murine ischemic injury model (myocardial infarction [MI] and ischemia-reperfusion [IR]) and validated the findings against ground truth histology. We randomly stratified 30 BALB/CJ mice (17 females, 13 males, median age = 10 wk) into three surgical groups (MI = 10, IR = 12, sham = 8) and imaged pre-surgery (baseline) and 1, 2, 7 and 14 d post-surgery using a pre-clinical high-frequency ultrasound system (VisualSonics Vevo 2100). We then used ABR-CSI to estimate end-systolic and peak radial (e r ) and longitudinal (e l ) strain estimates. ABR-CSI was found to have the ability to serially monitor non-uniform cardiac remodeling associated with murine MI and IR non-invasively through temporal variation of strain estimates post-surgery. Furthermore, radial end-systole (ES) strain images and segmental strain curves exhibited improved discrimination among infarct, border and remote regions around the myocardium compared with longitudinal strain results. For example, the MI group had significantly lower (Friedman's with Bonferroni-Dunn test, p = 0.002) ES e r values in the anterior middle (infarcted) region at day 14 (n = 9, 9.23 ± 7.39%) compared with the BL group (n = 9, 44.32 ± 5.49). In contrast, anterior basal (remote region) mean ES e r values did not differ significantly (non-significant Friedman's test, χ 2  = 8.93, p = 0.06) at day 14 (n = 6, 33.05 ± 6.99%) compared with baseline (n = 6, 34.02 ± 6.75%). Histology slides stained with Masson's trichrome (MT) together with a machine learning model (random forest classifier) were used to derive the ground truth cardiac fibrosis parameter termed histology percentage of myocardial fibrosis (PMF). Both radial and longitudinal strain were found to have strong statistically significant correlations with the PMF parameter. However, radial strain had a higher Spearman's correlation value (ε r es ρ = -0.67, n = 172, p < 0.001) compared with longitudinal strain (ε l es ρ = -0.60, n = 172, p < 0.001). Overall, the results of this study indicate that ABR-CSI can reliably perform non-invasive detection of infarcted and remote myocardium in small animal studies., (Copyright © 2022 World Federation for Ultrasound in Medicine & Biology. Published by Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.)

An adaptive Bayesian regularized cardiac strain imaging (ABR-CSI) algorithm for in vivo murine myocardial function assessment is presented. We report on 31 BALB/CJ mice (n = 17 females, n = 14 males), randomly stratified into three surgical groups: myocardial infarction (MI, n = 10), ischemia-reperfusion (IR, n = 13) and control (sham, n = 8) imaged pre-surgery (baseline- BL), and 1, 2, 7 and 14 days post-surgery using a high frequency ultrasound imaging system (Vevo 2100). End-systole (ES) radial and longitudinal strain images were used to generate cardiac fibrosis maps using binary thresholding. Percentage fibrotic myocardium (PFM) computed from regional fibrosis maps demonstrated statistically significant differences post-surgery in scar regions. For example, the MI group had significantly higher PFM Radial (%) values in the anterior mid region (p = 0.006) at Day 14 (n = 8, 42.30 ± 14.57) compared to BL (n = 12, 1.32 ± 0.85). A random forest classifier automatically detected fibrotic regions from ground truth Masson's trichrome stained histopathology whole slide images. Both PFM Radial (r = 0.70) and PFM Longitudinal (r = 0.60) results demonstrated strong, positive correlation with PFM Histopathology (p < 0.001)., (© 2022. The Author(s).)

A cardiac strain imaging framework with adaptive Bayesian regularization (ABR) is proposed for in vivo assessment of murine cardiac function. The framework uses ultrasound (US) radio-frequency data collected with a high frequency (f c = 30MHz) imaging system and a multi-level block matching algorithm with ABR to derive inter-frame cardiac displacements. Lagrangian cardiac strain (radial, e r and longitudinal, e l ) tensors were derived by segmenting the myocardial wall starting at the ECG R-wave and accumulating interframe deformations over a cardiac cycle. In vivo feasibility was investigated through a longitudinal study with two mice (one ischemia-perfusion (IR) injury and one sham) imaged at five sessions (pre-surgery (BL) and 1,2,7 and 14 days post-surgery). End-systole (ES) strain images and segmental strain curves were derived for quantitative evaluation. Both mice showed periodic variation of e r and e l strain at BL with segmental synchroneity. Infarcted regions of IR mouse at Day 14 were associated with reduced or sign reversed ES e r and e l values while the sham mouse had similar or higher strain than at BL. Infarcted regions identified in vivo were associated with increased collagen content confirmed with Masson's Trichrome stained ex vivo heart sections.Clinical Relevance-Higher quality cardiac strain images derived with RF data and Bayesian regularization can potentially improve the sensitivity and accuracy of non-invasive assessment of cardiovascular disease models.

Significance: Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) can be used to infer molecular information about myocardial health non-invasively in vivo using optical excitation at ultrasonic spatial resolution. For clinical and preclinical linear array imaging systems, conventional delay-and-sum (DAS) beamforming is typically used. However, DAS cardiac PA images are prone to artifacts such as diffuse quasi-static clutter with temporally varying noise-reducing myocardial signal specificity. Typically, multiple frame averaging schemes are utilized to improve the quality of cardiac PAI, which affects the spatial and temporal resolution and reduces sensitivity to subtle PA signal variation. Furthermore, frame averaging might corrupt myocardial oxygen saturation quantification due to the presence of natural cardiac wall motion. In this paper, a spatiotemporal singular value decomposition (SVD) processing algorithm is proposed to reduce DAS PAI artifacts and subsequent enhancement of myocardial signal specificity., Aim: Demonstrate enhancement of PA signals from myocardial tissue compared to surrounding tissues and blood inside the left-ventricular (LV) chamber using spatiotemporal SVD processing with electrocardiogram (ECG) and respiratory signal (ECG-R) gated in vivo murine cardiac PAI., Approach: In vivo murine cardiac PAI was performed by collecting single wavelength (850 nm) photoacoustic channel data on eight healthy mice. A three-dimensional (3D) volume of complex PAI data over a cardiac cycle was reconstructed using a custom ECG-R gating algorithm and DAS beamforming. Spatiotemporal SVD was applied on a two-dimensional Casorati matrix generated using the 3D volume of PAI data. The singular value spectrum (SVS) was then filtered to remove contributions from diffuse quasi-static clutter and random noise. Finally, SVD processed beamformed images were derived using filtered SVS and inverse SVD computations., Results: Qualitative comparison with DAS and minimum variance (MV) beamforming shows that SVD processed images had better myocardial signal specificity, contrast, and target detectability. DAS, MV, and SVD images were quantitatively evaluated by calculating contrast ratio (CR), generalized contrast-to-noise ratio (gCNR), and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR). Quantitative evaluations were done at three cardiac time points (during systole, at end-systole (ES), and during diastole) identified from co-registered ultrasound M-Mode image. Mean CR, gCNR, and SNR values of SVD images at ES were 245, 115.15, and 258.17 times higher than DAS images with statistical significance evaluated with one-way analysis of variance., Conclusions: Our results suggest that significantly better-quality images can be realized using spatiotemporal SVD processing for in vivo murine cardiac PAI.

Cardiac strain imaging (CSI) plays a critical role in the detection of myocardial motion abnormalities. Displacement estimation is an important processing step to ensure the accuracy and precision of derived strain tensors. In this paper, we propose and implement Spatiotemporal Bayesian regularization (STBR) algorithms for two-dimensional (2-D) normalized cross-correlation (NCC) based multi-level block matching along with incorporation into a Lagrangian cardiac strain estimation framework. Assuming smooth temporal variation over a short span of time, the proposed STBR algorithm performs displacement estimation using at least four consecutive ultrasound radio-frequency (RF) frames by iteratively regularizing 2-D NCC matrices using information from a local spatiotemporal neighborhood in a Bayesian sense. Two STBR schemes are proposed to construct Bayesian likelihood functions termed as Spatial then Temporal Bayesian (STBR-1) and simultaneous Spatiotemporal Bayesian (STBR-2). Radial and longitudinal strain estimated from a finite-element-analysis (FEA) model of realistic canine myocardial deformation were utilized to quantify strain bias, normalized strain error and total temporal relative error (TTR). Statistical analysis with one-way analysis of variance (ANOVA) showed that all Bayesian regularization methods significantly outperform NCC with lower bias and errors ( p < 0.001 ). However, there was no significant difference among Bayesian methods. For example, mean longitudinal TTR for NCC, SBR, STBR-1 and STBR-2 were 25.41%, 9.27%, 10.38% and 10.13% respectively An in vivo feasibility study using RF data from ten healthy mice hearts were used to compare the elastographic signal-to-noise ratio (SNR e ) calculated using stochastic analysis. STBR-2 had the highest expected SNR e both for radial and longitudinal strain. The mean expected SNR e values for accumulated radial strain for NCC, SBR, STBR-1 and STBR-2 were 5.03, 9.43, 9.42 and 10.58, respectively. Overall results suggest that STBR improves CSI in vivo .

Accumulating evidence shows that androgen receptor (AR) activation and signaling plays a key role in growth and progression in all stages of prostate cancer, even under low androgen levels or in the absence of androgen in the castration-resistant prostate cancer. Sustained activation of AR under androgen-deprived conditions may be due to its interaction with co-activators, such as p52 NF-κB subunit, and/or an increase in its stability by phosphorylation that delays its degradation. Here we identified a specific inhibitor of AR/p52 interaction, AR/p52-02, via a high throughput screen based on the reconstitution of Gaussia Luciferase. We found that AR/p52-02 markedly inhibited growth of both castration-resistant C4-2 (IC50 ∼6 μM) and parental androgen-dependent LNCaP (IC50 ∼4 μM) human prostate cancer cells under low androgen conditions. Growth inhibition was associated with significantly reduced nuclear p52 levels and DNA binding activity, as well as decreased phosphorylation of AR at serine 81, increased AR ubiquitination, and decreased AR transcriptional activity as indicated by decreased prostate-specific antigen (PSA) mRNA levels in both cell lines. AR/p52-02 also caused a reduction in levels of p21(WAF/CIP1), which is a direct AR targeted gene in that its expression correlates with androgen stimulation and mitogenic proliferation in prostate cancer under physiologic levels of androgen, likely by disrupting the AR signaling axis. The reduced level of cyclinD1 reported previously for this compound may be due to the reduction in nuclear presence and activity of p52, which directly regulates cyclinD1 expression, as well as the reduction in p21(WAF/CIP1), since p21(WAF/CIP1) is reported to stabilize nuclear cyclinD1 in prostate cancer. Overall, the data suggest that specifically inhibiting the interaction of AR with p52 and blocking activity of p52 and pARser81 may be an effective means of reducing castration-resistant prostate cancer cell growth.