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Non‐invasive multiphoton imaging of extracellular matrix structures
Author(s) -
SchenkeLayland Katja
Publication year - 2008
Publication title -
journal of biophotonics
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.877
H-Index - 66
eISSN - 1864-0648
pISSN - 1864-063X
DOI - 10.1002/jbio.200810045
Subject(s) - autofluorescence , extracellular matrix , multiphoton fluorescence microscope , microscopy , biophysics , in situ , second harmonic generation , confocal microscopy , cartilage , chemistry , biomedical engineering , materials science , microbiology and biotechnology , pathology , anatomy , fluorescence microscope , fluorescence , biology , optics , biochemistry , medicine , laser , physics , organic chemistry
Multiphoton microscopy has become a powerful method for the artifact‐free, nondestructive evaluation of deep‐tissue cells and extracellular matrix (ECM) structures in their native environment. By interacting with highly non‐centrosymmetric molecular assemblies such as fibrillar collagen, the non‐linear process called second harmonic generation (SHG) has also proven to be an important diagnostic tool for the visualization of ECM compartments in situ with submicron resolution without the need for tissue processing. This review reports on applications of multiphoton‐induced autofluorescence and SHG microscopy to identify collagen and elastic fiber orientation in native, tissue‐engineered and processed, as well as healthy and diseased, tissues and organs. SHG signal profiling was used to quantify ECM damage in various cardiovascular and exocrine tissues, as well as cartilage. These novel imaging modalities open the general possibility of high‐resolution in situ and more important in vivo imaging of ECM structures, cells and intracellular organelles in living intact tissues. (© 2008 WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim)