Determination of cardiac fibrosis using picrosirius red fluorescence

Abstract

Automatic measurement and quantification of collagen accumulation and fibrosis in the heart using multiphoton excitation methods is more difficult compared to other organs, as myosin and collagen both contribute to the second harmonic generation (SHG) signal, inhibiting any specificity of collagen only signals. Therefore, the most common fibrosis quantification using SHG often fails to quantify cardiac fibrosis. Picrosirius red (PSR) is a common dye that is used for the quantification of fibrosis using polarized light.