In vivo label-free measurement of blood flow velocity symmetry based on dual line scanning third-harmonic generation microscopy excited at the 1700 nm window

Measurement of bloodflow velocity is key to understanding physiology and pathology in vivo.While most measurements are performed at the middle of the blood vessel,little research has been done on characterizing the instantaneous bloodflow velocity distribution.This is mainly due to the lack of measurement technology with high spatial and temporal resolution.Here,we tackle this problem with our recently developed dual-wavelength line-scan third-harmonic generation(THG)imaging technology.Simultaneous acquisition of dual-wavelength THG line-scanning signals enables measurement of bloodflow velocities at two radially symmetric positions in both venules and arterioles in mouse brain in vivo.Our results clearly show that the instantaneous bloodflow velocity is not symmetric under general conditions.

3-photon fluorescence and third-harmonic generation imaging of myelin sheaths in mouse digital skin in vivo:A comparative study

Myelin sheaths wrapping axons are key structures that help maintain the propagation speed of action potentials in both central and peripheral nervous systems(CNS and PNS).However,noninvasive,deep imaging technologies visualizing myelin sheaths in the digital skin in vivo are lacking in animal models.3-photon°uorescence(3PF)imaging excited at the 1700-nm window enables deep imaging of myelin sheaths,but necessitates labeling by exogenous°uorescent dyes.Since myelin sheaths are lipid-rich structures which generate strong third-harmonic signals,in this paper,we perform a detailed comparative experimental study of both third-harmonic generation(THG)and 3PF imaging in the mouse digital skin in vivo.Our results show that THG imaging also enables visualization of myelin sheaths deep in the mouse digital skin,which shows colocalization with 3PF signals from labeled myelin sheaths.Besides its superior label-free advantage,THG does not su®er from photobleaching due to its 3PF property.

Comparison of the emission wavelengths by a single fluorescent dye on in vivo 3-photon imaging of mouse brains

Multiphoton microscopy(MPM)is a powerful imaging technology for brain research.The imaging depth in MPM is partly determined by emission wavelength of fluorescent labels.It has been demonstrated that a longer emission wavelength is favorable for signal detection as imaging depth increases.However,there has been no comparison with near-infrared(NIR)emission.In order to quantitatively analyze the effect of emission wavelength on 3-photon imaging of mouse brains in vivo,we utilize the same excitation wavelength to excite a single fluorescent dye and simultaneously collect NIR and orange-red emission fluorescence at 828 nm and 620 nm,respectively.Both experimental and simulation results show that as the imaging depth increases,NIR emission decays less than orange-red fluorescent emission.These results show that it is preferable to shift the emission wavelength to NIR to enable more e±cient signal collection deep in the brain.

Fast fluorescence lifetime imaging techniques:A review on challenge and development

Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy(FLIM)is increasingly used in biomedicine,material science,chemistry,and other related research fields,because of its advantages of high specificity and sensitivity in monitoring cellular microenvironments,studying interaction between proteins,metabolic state,screening drugs and analyzing their efficacy,characterizing novel materials,and diagnosing early cancers.Understandably,there is a large interest in obtaining FLIM data within an acquisition time as short as possible.Consequently,there is currently a technology that advances towards faster and faster FLIM recording.However,the maximum speed of a recording technique is only part of the problerm.The acquisition time of a FLIM image is a complex function of many factors.These include the photon rate that can be obtained from the sample,the amount of information a technique extracts from the decay functions,the fficiency at which it determines fluorescence decay parameters from the recorded photons,the demands for the accuracy of these parameters,the number of pixels,and the lateral and axial resolutions that are obtained in biological materials.Starting from a discussion of the parameters which determine the acquisition time,this review will describe existing and emerging FLIM techniques and data analysis algo-rithms,and analyze their performance and recording speed in biological and biomedical applications.

Green emitted CdSe@ZnS quantum dots for FLIM and STED imaging applications

Inorganic quantum dots(QDs)have excellent optical properties,such as high°uorescence intensity,excellent photostability and tunable emission wavelength,etc.,facilitating them to be used as labels and probes for bioimaging.In this study,CdSe@ZnS QDs are used as probes for Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscope(FLIM)and stimulated emission depletion(STED)nanoscopy imaging.The emission peak of CdSe@ZnS QDs centered at 526 nm with a narrow width of 19 nm and the photoluminescence quantum yield(PLQY)was 64%.The QDs presented excellent anti-photobleaching property which can be irradiated for 400 min by STED laser with 39.8 mW.The lateral resolution of 42.0 nm is demonstrated for single QDs under STED laser(27.5 mW)irradiation.Furthermore,the CdSe@ZnS QDs were for the first time used to successfully label the lysosomes of living HeLa cells and 81.5 nm lateral resolution is obtained indicating the available super-resolution applications in living cells for inorganic QD probes.Meanwhile,Eca-109 cells labeled with the CdSe@ZnS QDs was observed with FLIM,and their fluorescence lifetime was around 3.1 ns,consistent with the in vitro value,suggesting that the QDs could act as a satisfactory probe in further FLIM-STED experiments.

Deep-learning-based methods for super-resolution fluorescence microscopy

The algorithm used for reconstruction or resolution enhancement is one of the factors affectingthe quality of super-resolution images obtained by fluorescence microscopy.Deep-learning-basedalgorithms have achieved stateof-the-art performance in super-resolution fluorescence micros-copy and are becoming increasingly attractive.We firstly introduce commonly-used deep learningmodels,and then review the latest applications in terms of the net work architectures,the trainingdata and the loss functions.Additionally,we discuss the challenges and limits when using deeplearning to analyze the fluorescence microscopic data,and suggest ways to improve the reliability and robustness of deep learning applications.

Deep-skin third-harmonic generation(THG)imaging in vivo excited at the 2200 nm window

The skin is heterogeneous and exerts strong scattering and aberration onto excitation light in multiphoton microscopy(MPM).Shifting to longer excitation wavelengths may help reduce skin scattering and aberration,potentially enabling larger imaging depths.However,previous demonstrations of skin MPM employ excitation wavelengths only up to the 1700 nm window,leaving an open question as to whether longer excitation wavelengths are suitable for deep-skin MPM.Here,in order to explore the longer-wavelength territory,first,we demonstrate characterization of the broadband transmittance of excised mouse skin,revealing a high transmittance window at 2200nm.Then,we demonstrate third-harmonic generation(THG)imaging in mouse skin in vivo excited at this window.With 9mW optical power on the skin surface operating at 1MHz repetition rate,we can get THG signals of 250
m below the skin surface.Comparative THG imaging excited at the 1700nm window shows that as imaging depth increases,THG signals decay even faster than those excited at 2200 nm.Our results thus uncover the 2200 nm window as a new,promising excitation window potential for deep-skin MPM.

Fluorescence life-time imaging microscopy(FLIM)monitors tumor cell death triggered by photothermal therapy with MoS_(2) nanosheets

Recently,photothermal therapy(PTT)has been proved to have great potential in tumor therapy.In the last several years,MoS_(2),as one novel member of nanomaterials,has been applied into PTT due to its excellent photothermal conversion efficacy.In this work,we applied fuorescence lifetime imaging microscopy(FLIM)techniques into monitoring the PPT-triggered cell death under MoS_(2) nanosheet treatment.Two types of MoS_(2) nanosheets(single layer nanosheets and few layer nanosheets)were obtained,both of which exhibited presentable photothermal conversion fficacy,leading to high cell death rates of 4T1 cells(mouse breast cancer cells)under PTT.Next,live cell images of 4T1 cells were obtained via directly labeling the mitochondria with Rodamine123,which were then continuously observed with FLIM technique.FLIM data showed that the fuorescence lifetimes of mitochondria targeting dye in cells treated with each type of MoS_(2) nanosheets significantly increased during PTT treatment.By contrast,the fuorescence lifetime of the same dye in control cells(without nanomaterials)remained constant after laser irradiation.These findings suggest that FLIM can be of great value in monitoring cell death process during PTT of cancer cells,which could provide dynamic data of the cellular microenvironment at single cell level in multiple biomedical applications.