Articles by Brian T. Freeman in JoVE

A Cre-Lox P Recombination Approach for the Detection of Cell Fusion In Vivo

JoVE 3581 1/04/2012

Anthony J. Sprangers¹, Brian T. Freeman¹, Nicholas A. Kouris¹, Brenda M. Ogle²

¹Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Wisconsin-Madison, ²Department of Biomedical Engineering, Materials Science Program, Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation, University of Wisconsin-Madison

A method to track cell fusion in living organisms over time is described. The approach utilizes Cre-LoxP recombination to induce luciferase expression upon cell fusion. The luminescent signal generated can be detected in living organisms using biophotonic imaging systems with a sensitivity of detection of ˜1,000 cells in peripheral tissues.