Department of Pediatrics, National Jewish Health, Denver, Colorado, United States of America.
Department of Medicine, University of Colorado Anschutz Medical Campus, Aurora, Colorado, United States of America.
PLoS One. 2023 Feb 9;18(2):e0281452. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0281452. eCollection 2023.
The advent of micro-computed tomography (microCT) has provided significant advancement in our ability to generate clinically relevant assessments of lung health and disease in small animal models. As microCT use to generate outcomes analysis in pulmonary preclinical models has increased there have been substantial improvements in image quality and resolution, and data analysis software. However, there are limited published methods for standardized imaging and automated analysis available for investigators. Manual quantitative analysis of microCT images is complicated by the presence of inflammation and parenchymal disease. To improve the efficiency and limit user-associated bias, we have developed an automated pulmonary air and tissue segmentation (PATS) task list to segment lung air volume and lung tissue volume for quantitative analysis. We demonstrate the effective use of the PATS task list using four distinct methods for imaging, 1) in vivo respiration controlled scanning using a flexiVent, 2) longitudinal breath-gated in vivo scanning in resolving and non-resolving pulmonary disease initiated by lipopolysaccharide-, bleomycin-, and silica-exposure, 3) post-mortem imaging, and 4) ex vivo high-resolution scanning. The accuracy of the PATS task list was compared to manual segmentation. The use of these imaging techniques and automated quantification methodology across multiple models of lung injury and fibrosis demonstrates the broad applicability and adaptability of microCT to various lung diseases and small animal models and presents a significant advance in efficiency and standardization of preclinical microCT imaging and analysis for the field of pulmonary research.
微计算机断层扫描(microCT)的出现极大地提高了我们在小动物模型中生成与临床相关的肺部健康和疾病评估的能力。随着 microCT 在生成肺临床前模型的结果分析中的应用增加,图像质量和分辨率以及数据分析软件都得到了实质性的改进。然而,对于研究人员来说,用于标准化成像和自动化分析的方法有限。由于炎症和实质疾病的存在,对 microCT 图像进行手动定量分析变得复杂。为了提高效率并限制用户相关的偏差,我们开发了一种自动化的肺部空气和组织分割(PATS)任务列表,用于对肺部空气量和肺组织量进行定量分析。我们使用四种不同的成像方法展示了 PATS 任务列表的有效使用,1)使用 flexiVent 进行体内呼吸控制扫描,2)通过脂多糖、博来霉素和二氧化硅暴露引发的肺部疾病的纵向呼吸门控体内扫描,3)死后成像,和 4)离体高分辨率扫描。将 PATS 任务列表的准确性与手动分割进行了比较。这些成像技术和自动化定量方法在多种肺部损伤和纤维化模型中的应用,证明了 microCT 对各种肺部疾病和小动物模型的广泛适用性和适应性,并在肺部研究领域的临床前 microCT 成像和分析的效率和标准化方面取得了重大进展。