Patent ID: 7524674

Claim:
A triple fusion nucleic acid expression vector, comprising: a first reporter nucleic acid sequence, a second reporter nucleic acid sequence, a third reporter nucleic acid sequence, a first nucleic acid linker sequence, and a second nucleic acid linker sequence, wherein: (i) the first reporter nucleic acid sequence, the second reporter nucleic acid sequence, the third reporter nucleic acid sequence, the first nucleic acid linker sequence, and the second nucleic acid linker sequence are operably linked to an expression control system and co-expressible as a single fusion polypeptide therefrom; (ii) the first reporter nucleic acid sequence and the second reporter nucleic acid sequence are separated from each ether by the first nucleic acid linker sequence; (iii) the second reporter nucleic acid sequence and the third reporter nucleic acid sequence are separated from each other by the second nucleic acid linker sequence; (iii) each of the first, second, and third reporter nucleic acid sequences encodes an individual imageable reporter region of the expressed fusion polypeptide; (iv) each of the individual imageable reporter regions of the fusion polypeptide is imageable by a method selected from the group consisting of: detecting bioluminescence, detecting fluorescence, and positron emission topography, wherein no two reporter regions are imageable by the same method; and (v) the first nucleic acid linker sequence encodes a first polypeptide linker having the amino acid sequence SEQ ID NO: 9, and the second nucleic acid linker sequence encodes a second polypeptide linker having the amino acid sequence SEQ ID NO: 10.