Cell death detection by quantitative three-dimensional single-cell tomography

Abstract

Ultrahigh-resolution optical coherence tomography (UR-OCT) has been used for the first time to our knowledge to study single-cell basal cell carcinoma (BCC) in vitro. This noninvasive, in situ, label-free technique with deep imaging depth enables three-dimensional analysis of scattering properties of single cells with cellular spatial resolution. From three-dimensional UR-OCT imaging, live and dead BCC cells can be easily identified based on morphological observation. We developed a novel method to automatically extract characteristic parameters of a single cell from data volume, and quantitative comparison and parametric analysis were performed. The results demonstrate the capability of UR-OCT to detect cell death at the cellular level.

Longitudinal label-free tracking of cell death dynamics in living engineered human skin tissue with a multimodal microscope

“…With well-developed biomarkers, histology has been the gold standard for recognition of apoptosis, which is easily visualized by morphological changes such as chromatin condensation, mitochondrial swelling, and membrane blebbing. In contrast to the destructive manner of histology, some nondestructive optical imaging techniques, such as optical coherence tomography (OCT) [8][9][10][11][12][13], Raman spectroscopy [14], and fluorescence microscopy [6,15,16], have been exploited recently for real-time investigation of cell death processes in cell cultures. However, noninvasive real-time imaging and differentiation of apoptosis and necrosis under more natural tissue conditions, where the roles of cell death are essentially played out, becomes difficult due to the complex tissue environment involving the extracellular matrix and multiple cell types [5].…”

Segmentation of nucleus and cytoplasm of a single cell in three-dimensional tomogram using optical coherence tomography

“…OCT has been widely used in ophthalmology for retina imaging but has recently been applied for single-cell imaging. 5 The N/C ratio is a critical feature for evaluating whether cells are normal or cancerous. 6,7 If the cells undergo physiological changes such as apoptosis and cancerous development, then the N/C ratio changes.…”

Ligand-Driven and Full-Color-Tunable Fiber Source: Toward Next-Generation Clinic Fiber-Endoscope Tomography with Cellular Resolution

“…The predicted axial resolutions in air, estimated from the full-color bandwidth, are approximately 0.97 and 1.03 μm, respectively. The predicted submicrometer-scale axial resolution of the ligand-driven fullcolor fiber source in air is smaller than the corresponding resolutions of OCT images based on conventional broadband gain media (2.2 μm for Ti 3+ :sapphire 57 and 1.45 μm for Ce 3+ :YAG58 ) and white-light sources (1.6 μm 59 ). The broadband emissions from representative Ti 3+ :sapphire and Ce 3+ :YAG crystals are among those used as high axial resolution OCT light sources in the near infrared and visible wavelength ranges, respectively.…”