A team of researchers at the University of Illinois have come up with a microscope system that can image living tissue in real time and in molecular detail, without any chemicals or dyes. The new technology could boost cancer study.
Called simultaneous label-free autofluorescence multi-harmonic microscopy, the technology was reported in the journal Nature Communications.
How does the system work? It utilizes precisely tailored pulses of light to simultaneously image with multiple wavelengths. This enables the researchers to study concurrent processes within cells and tissue. A major benefit: it could give cancer researchers a new tool for tracking tumor progression and physicians new technology for tissue pathology and diagnostics.
“The way we have been removing, processing and staining tissue for diagnosing diseases has been practiced the same way for over a century,” said Dr. Stephen Boppart. He is the study leader, a professor of bioengineering, and electrical and computer engineering at Illinois and a medical doctor. “With advances in microscopy techniques such as ours, we hope to change the way we detect, visualize and monitor diseases that will lead to better diagnosis, treatments and outcomes.”
The key question is, how does “SLAM microscopy” differs from standard tissue pathology. First, it is used on living tissue, even inside a living being, giving it the potential to be used for clinical diagnosis or to guide surgery in the operating room. Second, it uses no dyes or chemicals, only light. Standard procedure involves removing a tissue sample and adding chemical stains – which can be a lengthy process – and the chemicals can disrupt the cells.
According to Sixian You, the first author of the paper, while other stain-free imaging techniques have been developed, they usually only visualize a subset of signals, measuring specific biological or metabolic signatures. Meanwhile, SLAM microscopy simultaneously collects multiple contrasts from cells and tissues, capturing molecular-level details and dynamics such as metabolism.
Boppart’s group is using SLAM microscopy to compare healthy tissue and cancer tissue in both rats and humans, focusing particularly on vesicle activity and how it relates to cancer aggressiveness. They are also working to make portable versions of the SLAM microscope that could be used clinically.
“There is a wealth of new data, information and biomarkers in the images we collect from fresh tissue that is still metabolically active, or in living organisms, where we can visualize the dynamics of individual cells and their collective behaviors,” said Boppart “These, we expect, will become new markers for diseases such as cancer, and our imaging technology will help detect these for disease screening, diagnostics and monitoring applications.
The thinking is that this technology will open the possibility of complementing, or even replacing, standard histopathology processing, which is time- and labor-intensive and can only be done on removed, fixed, dead tissue.
SOURCE
https://news.illinois.edu/view/6367/663375