Qualitative in vivo bioluminescence imaging.

Bioluminescence imaging (BLI) technology is an advanced method of carrying out molecular imaging on live laboratory animals in vivo. This powerful technique is widely-used in studying a variety of biological processes, and it has been an ideal tool in exploring tumor growth and metastatic spread in real-time. This technique ensures the optimal use of laboratory animal resources, particularly the ethical principle of reduction in animal use, given its non-invasive nature, ensuring that ongoing biological processes can be studied over time in the same animal, without the need to euthanize groups of mice at specific time points. In this protocol, the luciferase imaging technique was developed to study the effect of co-inoculating pericytes (contractile, αSMA+ mesenchymal stem cell-like cells, located abluminally in microvessels) on the growth and metastatic spread of ovarian cancers using an aggressive ovarian cancer cell line-OVCAR-5-as an example.