Whole-body autoradiography imaging

While imaging an individual organ or tumor is useful for determining local distribution and concentration, it is important to determine the eirculatory pathway over the entire body. Whole-body autoradiography (WBA) is one technique that can display drug distribution postdrug administration. 

In drug discovery and development, it is a crucial process to determine how a candidate compound is distributed and metabolized within the body. The use of IMS to monitor drug delivery and their metabolism has also been attractive application area. IMS offers detailed drug distribution images, which are comparable to traditional whole body autoradiography (WBA) technique using radiolabeled compounds (Figure 3.24). Stoeckli... 

Kertesz V, van Berkel G, Vavrek M, Koeplinger K, Schneider B, Covey T (2008) Comparison of drug distribution images from whole-body thin tissue sections obtained using desorption electrospray ionization tandem mass spectrometry and autoradiography. Anal Chem 80 5168-5177. doi 10.1021/ac800546a... 

FIGURE 15.14 Tissue imaging using DESI—MS/MS and autoradiography in mice dosed with propranolol, (a) Scanned optical image of a 40-pm-thick sagittal whole-body tissue section of a mouse dosed intravenously with 7.5 mg/kg propranolol and euthanized 60 min after dose, (b) Distribution of propranolol in the 94 mm X 30 mm tissue section presented in (a) measured by DESI—MS/MS. [Reprinted from Kertesz et al. (2008) with permission of American Chemical Society.]... 

The study of drug distribution would be best made by whole body imaging as can be done by cryomicrotomy with the help of a Scotch tape and autoradiography (21). 

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