Zebrafish play an important role in biological and biomedical research. Traditional in vivo imaging methods for studying zebrafish larvae primarily require fluorescence labeling. In this work, relying on tissue intrinsic optical absorption contrast, we acquired high resolution label-free 3D images of zebrafish larvae by using photoacoustic microscopy (PAM) in vivo. The spatial resolution reaches several microns, allowing the study of microstructures in various living organs. We demonstrated that our method has the potential to be a powerful non-invasive imaging method for studying various small animal models, including zebrafish larvae, Caenorhabditis elegans, frogs and drosophila larvae.
We have developed a prototype ocular imaging system that integrates optical-resolution photoacoustic microscopy and high-frequency ultrasound imaging. The system can perform high-resolution ocular imaging from the anterior region down to the fundus. It has successfully imaged murine eyes in vivo, including iris, lens, retina, and retinal pigment epithelium. Our results demonstrate that this system shows strong potential for the diagnosis of ophthalmic diseases.
Small animal models, such as zebrafish, drosophila, C. elegan, is considered to be important models in comparative biology and diseases researches. Traditional imaging methods primarily employ several optical microscopic imaging modalities that rely on fluorescence labeling, which may have potential to affect the natural physiological progress. Thus a label-free imaging method is desired. Photoacoustic (PA) microscopy (PAM) is an emerging biomedical imaging method that combines optical contrast with ultrasonic detection, which is highly sensitive to the optical absorption contrast of living tissues, such as pigments, the vasculature and other optically absorbing organs. In this work, we reported the whole body label-free imaging of zebrafish larvae and drosophila pupa by PAM. Based on intrinsic optical absorption contrast, high resolution images of pigments, microvasculature and several other major organs have been obtained in vivo and non-invasively, and compared with their optical counterparts. We demonstrated that PAM has the potential to be a powerful non-invasive imaging method for studying larvae and pupa of various animal models.
The murine model of hindlimb ischemia is extensively used in studies on the physiology and pathology of ischemia and angiogenesis. Traditional non-invasive evaluation methods, such as laser or ultrasound blood flow perfusion imaging and micro-CT angiography, are limited either by low resolution or toxic exogenous agents. Relying on intrinsic high optical absorption contrast, we conduct label-free imaging of subcutaneous blood vasculature in the hindlimb of murine models by photoacoustic microscopy (PAM). The angiogenesis induced by ischemia in the hindlimb is successfully observed at high resolution in vivo and non-invasively. PAM is a potentially powerful imaging method for studying ischemic diseases and resultant angiogenesis.
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