Harnessing the Power of Optical Microscopic and Macroscopic Imaging for Natural Products as Cancer Therapeutics

Abstract

Natural products (NPs) are an important source for new drug discovery over the past decades, which have been demonstrated to be effectively used in cancer prevention, treatment, and adjuvant therapy. Many methods, such as the genomic and metabolomic approaches, immunochemistry, mass spectrometry, and chromatography, have been used to study the effects of NPs on cancer as well as themselves. Because of the advantages in specificity, sensitivity, high throughput, and cost-effectiveness, optical imaging (OI) approaches, including optical microscopic imaging and macroscopic imaging techniques have also been applied in the studies of NPs. Optical microscopic imaging can observe NPs as cancer therapeutics at the cellular level and analyze its cytotoxicity and mechanism of action. Optical macroscopic imaging observes the distribution, metabolic pathway, and target lesions of NPs in vivo, and evaluates NPs as cancer therapeutics at the whole-body level in small living animals. This review focuses on the recent advances in NPs as cancer therapeutics, with particular emphasis on the powerful use of optical microscopic and macroscopic imaging techniques, including the studies of observation of ingestion by cells, anticancer mechanism, and in vivo delivery. Finally, we prospect the wider application and future potential of OI approaches in NPs as cancer therapeutics.

Ultra-low-cost and high-fidelity NIR-II confocal laser scanning microscope with Bessel beam excitation and SiPM detection

“…Advantageous imaging effects have been reported in the NIR-II band, such as widefield microscope [11][12][13][14], light sheet microscope [15][16][17], CLSM [18][19][20][21], two-photon and multiphoton microscope [22][23][24][25].…”

Ultra-low-cost and high-fidelity NIR-II confocal laser scanning microscope with Bessel beam excitation and SiPM detection

“…Advantageous imaging effects have been reported in the NIR-II band, such as widefield microscope [11][12][13][14], light sheet microscope [15][16][17], CLSM [18][19][20][21], two-photon and multiphoton microscope [22][23][24][25].…”

The investigation of in vitro effects of farnesol at different cancer cell lines

“…Biological active ingredients obtained from natural products are also effective sources in cancer prevention, treatment, and adjuvant therapy. (Nobili et al, 2009;Yan et al, 2019).…”

“…The reduction in proliferation rate of cancer cells and apoptosis of cancer cells are the most important evidences for cancer therapeutics. Optical microscopic techniques are also widely used for both the observation of cell apoptosis and the quantitative analysis of drug-treated cancer cells (Yan et al, 2019). In recent years, many high-resolution optical microscopy techniques such as 3D microscopy, super-resolution microscopy, and label-free spectroscopy have been developed with developments in the field of light microscopy (Liu & Xu, 2019).…”