An innovative new study from researchers at the Centre for Healthy Brain Ageing (CHeBA), UNSW Sydney, reveals that something as simple as a mouse's dinner could be distorting critical preclinical imaging results.
Published in Magnetochemistry, the research explores how standard laboratory diets can cause unexpected and misleading signals in Magnetic Particle Imaging (MPI) - a powerful imaging tool used in medical research and increasingly in clinical applications.
“Our findings show that even mice that haven’t received any magnetic tracer injections can produce gut signals equivalent to a 5 μg dose of Vivotrax, purely due to their diet,” said lead author and Research Fellow Dr Saeed Shanehsazzadeh from CHeBA.
“This kind of background noise could severely impact the accuracy of MPI results, especially when studying tiny tracer doses or sensitive regions near the gut.”
The team systematically tested six widely used laboratory mouse diets in Australia, including low-iron, Western, and specialty formulations, alongside short-term fasting protocols.
The researchers found that standard lab diets produced MPI signal intensities up to 11 times higher than modified diets, that switching to a GAN or Western diet, or fasting for just 24 hours, reduced gut signals by around 90%, and that low-iron diets also performed well, offering a non-invasive, low-stress solution to improve imaging clarity.
“This is an important discovery,” said CHeBA Co-Director Professor Perminder Sachdev. “Accurate imaging is the cornerstone of research and diagnostics. We now know that a simple change in diet can significantly reduce gut signal interference in MPI studies, potentially improving data quality across a wide range of biomedical research applications.”
The implications of the study go beyond MPI. With increasing reliance on precision imaging for disease modelling, diagnostics, and drug testing, refining preclinical methods is critical.
“This could save researchers time, resources, and improve experimental reproducibility - just by adjusting the feed,” Dr Shanehsazzadeh added.
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Heidi Douglass
