Journal of Biophotonics最新文献

Noninvasive and real-time optical detection of cardiac hemodynamics dysfunction during myocardial ischemia remains challenging. In this study, we developed a near-infrared spectroscopy device to monitor rats' myocardial hemodynamics. The well-designed system can accurately reflect the hemodynamics changes by the classic upper limb ischemia test. Systemic hypoxia by disconnecting to the ventilator and cardiac ischemia by coronary artery slipknot ligation was conducted to monitor myocardial hemodynamics. When systemic hypoxia occurred, ΔHbR and ΔtHb increased significantly, whereas ΔHbO decreased rapidly. When coronary blood flow was obstructed by slipknots, cardiothoracic ΔHbO immediately begins to decline, while ΔHbR also significantly increases. Simultaneously, SpO₂ did not show any obvious changes during myocardial ischemia, while SpO₂ decreased significantly during systemic hypoxia. These results demonstrated that cardiothoracic hemodynamics stemmed from myocardial ischemia. This pilot study demonstrated the practicality of noninvasive, low-cost optical monitoring for cardiac oxygenation dysfunction in rats.

Knowledge of the optical parameters of tumors is important for choosing the correct laser treatment parameters. In this paper, optical properties and refraction indices of breast tissue in healthy mice and a 4T1 model mimicking human breast cancer have been measured. A significant decrease in both the scattering and refractive index of tumor tissue has been observed. The change in tissue morphology has induced the change in the slope of the scattering spectrum. Thus, the light penetration depth into tumor has increased by almost 1.5–2 times in the near infrared “optical windows.” Raman spectra have shown lower lipid content and higher protein content in tumor. The difference in the optical parameters of the tissues under study makes it possible to reliably differentiate them. The results may be useful for modeling the distribution of laser radiation in healthy tissues and cancers for deriving optimal irradiation conditions in photodynamic therapy.

We report a new application of compression optical coherence elastography (C-OCE) to monitor the emergence of ruptures in individual layers of longitudinally stretched small-intestine walls using tissue samples (n = 36) from nine minipigs. Before stretching, C-OCE successfully estimated stiffness for each intestine-wall layer: longitudinal muscular layer with serosa, circumferential muscular layer, submucosa and mucosa. In stretched samples, C-OCE clearly visualized initial stiffening in both muscular layers. By 25% elongation, a sharp stiffness decrease for the longitudinal muscular layer, indicated emergence of tears in all samples. With further stretching, for most samples, ruptures emerged in the circumferential muscular layer and submucosa, while mucosa remained undamaged. Histology confirmed the OCE-revealed damaging and absence of tissue damage for ~15% elongation. Thus, C-OCE has demonstrated a high potential for determining the safety tissue-stretching threshold which afterward may be used intraoperatively to prevent rupture risk in intestinal tissues stretched during various diagnostic/therapeutic procedures.

Vision impairment caused by diabetic retinopathy (DR) is often irreversible, making early-stage diagnosis imperative. Raman spectroscopy emerges as a powerful tool, capable of providing molecular fingerprints of tissues. This study employs RS to detect ex vivo retinal tissue from diabetic rats at various stages of the disease. Transmission electron microscopy was utilized to reveal the ultrastructural changes in retinal tissue. Following spectral preprocessing of the acquired data, the random forest and orthogonal partial least squares-discriminant analysis algorithms were employed for spectral data analysis. The entirety of Raman spectra and all annotated bands accurately and distinctly differentiate all animal groups, and can identify significant molecules from the spectral data. Bands at 524, 1335, 543, and 435 cm⁻¹ were found to be associated with the preproliferative phase of DR. Bands at 1045 and 1335 cm⁻¹ were found to be associated with early stages of DR.

Photobiomodulation, utilising non-ionising light in the visible and near-infrared (NIR) spectrum, has been suggested as a potential method for enhancing tissue repair, reducing inflammation and possibly mitigating cancer-therapy-associated side effects. NIR light is suggested to be absorbed intracellularly, mainly by chromophores within the mitochondria. This study examines the impact of 734 nm NIR light on cellular senescence. Cancer (MCF7 and A549) and non-cancer (MCF10A and IMR-90) cell populations were subjected to 63 mJ/cm² NIR-light exposure for 6 days. Senescence levels were quantified by measuring active senescence-associated beta-galactosidase. Exposure to NIR light significantly increases senescence levels in cancer (10.0%–203.2%) but not in non-cancer cells (p > 0.05). Changes in senescence were associated with significant modulation of mitochondrial homeostasis, including increased levels of reactive oxygen species (p < 0.05) and mitochondrial membrane potential (p < 0.05) post-NIR-light treatment. These results suggest that NIR light modulates cellular chemistry, arresting the proliferation of cancer cells via senescence induction while sparing non-cancer cells.

Hyperspectral quantitative phase microscopy (HS-QPM) involves the acquisition of phase images across narrow spectral bands, which enables wavelength-dependent study of different biological samples. In the present work, a compact Linnik-type HS-QPM system is developed to reduce the instability and complexity associated with conventional HS-QPM techniques. The use of a single objective lens for both reference and sample arms makes the setup compact. The capabilities of the system are demonstrated by evaluating the HS phase map of both industrial and biological specimens. Phase maps of exfoliated cheek cells at different wavelengths are stacked to form a HS phase cube, adding spectral dimensionality to spatial phase distribution. Analysis of wavelength response of different cellular components are performed using principal component analysis to identify dominant spectral features present in the HS phase dataset. Findings of the study emphasize on the efficiency and effectiveness of HS-QPM for advancing cellular characterization in biomedical research and clinical applications.

Elastography is a noninvasive technique for characterizing the mechanical properties of biological tissues. Conventional methods have limitations in resolution and sensitivity, hindering disease detection in clinical diagnostics. To address these issues, this study developed an optical-resolution photoacoustic microelastography (OR-PAME) system. Using an agar tissue phantom with varying agar concentrations and contrast agents, PAME evaluated elasticity distribution under compression in both lateral and axial dimensions. It indirectly measured elastic properties by correlating photoacoustic responses, temporal lags, and induced displacement. We also applied the system to the study of the distribution of elastic characteristics of the liver tissue after ablation, which confirmed the potential of OR-PAME in the study of elastic characteristics. Quantitative analysis showed greater lateral displacement in regions with reduced agar concentrations, indicating decreased stiffness. PAME also detected vertical displacement along the axial plane, validating its efficacy in elastographic imaging. By improving resolution and penetration, PAME provides superior visualization of elasticity distribution. Its methodology correlates microstructural alterations with tissue biomechanics, holding potential implications in medical diagnostics.

Measurement of anisotropy factor (g) in the presence of nanoparticles (NPs) is important for understanding light distribution for plasmonic photothermal cancer therapeutics. Here, anisotropy factor is investigated through bilayer phantoms (epidermal and dermal) of various thicknesses incorporated with gold nanorods (GNRs) concentrations of 10–40 μg/mL by using in-house developed goniometric setup. Results show that 10 μg/mL GNRs in the phantom increase g by ~50% (g = 0.9471) w.r.t. phantom without NPs. Higher concentrations (40 μg/mL) of GNRs decrease g by ~43% (g = 0.5341) w.r.t. phantom with 10 μg/mL GNRs. For 40 μg/mL GNRs phantom, the anisotropy factor reduces by 47% for phantom thickness from 600 to 1800 μm. Anisotropy factor of GNR embedded phantom increased by 44% by using glycerol (10%–40%). Incorporation of NPs in a tumor significantly affects g, a major parameter for light distribution. These measurements provide insights for light scattering based on nanoparticle doses for plasmonic photothermal therapeutics.

The objective of this study was to discriminate thyroid and parathyroid tissues using Raman spectroscopy combined with an improved support vector machine (SVM) algorithm. In thyroid surgery, there is a risk of inadvertently removing the parathyroid glands. At present, there is a lack of research on using Raman spectroscopy to discriminate parathyroid and thyroid tissues. In this article, samples were obtained from 43 individuals with thyroid and parathyroid tissues for Raman spectroscopy analysis. This study employed partial least squares (PLS) to reduce dimensions of data, and three optimization algorithms are used to improve the classification accuracy of SVM algorithm model in spectral analysis. The results show that PLS-GA-SVM algorithm has higher diagnostic accuracy and better reliability. The sensitivity of this algorithm is 94.67% and the accuracy is 94.44%. It can be concluded that Raman spectroscopy combined with the PLS-GA-SVM diagnostic algorithm has significant potential for discriminating thyroid and parathyroid tissues.