• Marilena Marinescu, Fabien Chauveau, Anne Durand, Adrien Riou, Tae-Hee Cho, Anne Dencausse, Sébastien Ballet, Norbert Nighoghossian, Yves Berthezène, and Marlène Wiart.
• UMR CNRS 5520 CREATIS, Hopital Louis Pradel, Université de Lyon, Lyon 1, 28 avenue du Doyen LEPINE, 69677, Bron, France.
• Eur Radiol. 2013 Jan 1;23(1):37-47.

ObjectivesThis study sought to evaluate whether the therapeutic effects of an anti-inflammatory drug such as minocycline could be monitored by serial ultrasmall superparamagnetic particles of iron oxide (USPIO)-enhanced MRI in experimental stroke.MethodsMice received a three-dose minocycline treatment (n = 12) or vehicle (n = 12) after permanent middle cerebral artery occlusion. USPIOs were administered 5 h post-surgery. MRI was performed before, 24 h and 48 h post-USPIO administration. MRI endpoints were the extent of signal abnormalities on R2 maps (=1/T2) and quantitative R2 changes over time (∆R2). Post-mortem brains were prepared either for immunohistology (n = 16) or for iron dosage (n = 8).ResultsAs expected, treatment with minocycline significantly reduced infarct size, blood-brain barrier permeability and F4/80 immunostaining for microglia/macrophages. Areas of R2 maps > 35 ms(-1) also appeared significantly decreased in minocycline-treated mice (ANOVA for repeated measures, P = 0.017). There was a fair correlation between these areas and the amount of iron in the brain (R(2) = 0.69, P = 0.010), but no significant difference in ∆R2 was found between the two groups.ConclusionsThis study showed that the extent of signal abnormalities on R2 maps can be used as a surrogate marker to detect minocycline effects in a murine experimental model of stroke.

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