Detecting heart-valve infection
A novel imaging probe developed by a Harvard-led team of investigators at Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH) may make it possible to accurately diagnose a dangerous infection of the heart valves. In a Nature Medicine report, which is receiving advance online publication, the team from the MGH Center for Systems Biology describes how the presence of Staphylococcus aureus-associated endocarditis in a mouse model was revealed by PET imaging with a radiolabeled version of a protein involved in a process that usually conceals infecting bacteria from the immune system. “Our probe was able to sense whether S. aureus was present in abnormal growths that hinder the normal function of heart valves,” says Matthias Nahrendorf of the MGH Center for Systems Biology, a co-lead author of the study. “It has been very difficult to identify the bacteria involved in endocarditis, but a precise diagnosis is important to steering well-adjusted antibiotic therapy.” An infection of the...