Direct MRI of Collagen
Abstract
Collagen is the most abundant protein in the human body and has an important role in healthy tissue as well as in a range of prevalent diseases. Medical research and diagnostics hence call for means of mapping collagen in vivo. Magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) is a natural candidate for this task, offering full 3D capability and versatile contrast non-invasively. However, collagen has so far been invisible to MRI due to extremely short lifetime of its resonances. Here, we report the direct imaging of collagen in vivo by magnetic resonance on the microsecond scale. The dynamics of resonance signals from collagen were first assessed in samples of bovine tendon and cortical bone. On this basis, imaging was performed at echo times down to 10 microseconds, yielding collagen-specific depiction by echo subtraction. The same approach was then extended for use in vivo, enabling direct collagen imaging of a human forearm. This capability suggests significant promise for biomedical science and clinical use.
Significance statement
Collagen is a prevalent protein in the human body that plays a critical role in maintaining tissue integrity. Collagen-related conditions such as arthritis and fibrosis are widespread and have thus warranted the extensive investigation of the protein. Until now, however, non-invasive depiction of collagen using magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) has been considered infeasible because MR signals from collagen decay too quickly to be detected. In this work, dedicated hardware and methodology targeting such signals are employed to enable direct visualization of collagen with MRI. The proposed technique presents a novel approach to study the structure and distribution of collagen in the body, with a range of potential applications in medical diagnostics, drug testing, and tissue engineering.
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