Imaging inflammation of the pancreatic islets in type 1 diabetes

Type 1 diabetes is the clinical manifestation of aberrant leukocytic infiltration of the pancreatic islets; it is usually diagnosed only very late in disease progression, after the critical autoimmune phenomena have mostly played out. A noninvasive means of directly monitoring the evolution of islet infiltrates would have important research and clinical applications. We have exploited fluorescence and MRI of long-circulating magnetofluorescent nanoparticles to visualize microvascular leakage, as an indicator of inflammation, in pancreata of mouse models of type 1 diabetes ex vivo or in vivo. We could detect the onset and evolution of insulitis in vivo and in real time, permitting us to study the natural history of diabetes in individual animals.