Ratio Of Photoacoustic Signal Research Articles

A Noise Reduction Method for Photoacoustic Imaging <italic>In Vivo</italic> Based on EMD and Conditional Mutual Information

Photoacoustic tomography is a technique to reconstruct the image of light energy absorption distribution in tissues based on the detected photoacoustic signals. In recent years, this research field has been greatly developed, and its application range is wide, including anatomy, functionality, and molecular imaging. However, the conversion efficiency of photoacoustic effect from light to sound is quite low, which leads to the low signal-to-noise ratio of photoacoustic signal and the poor quality of reconstructed photoacoustic image. The traditional method to improve the signal-to-noise ratio of photoacoustic signals is data averaging method, but it seriously limits the imaging speed due to multiple acquisition. Without sacrificing signal fidelity and imaging speed, an empirical mode decomposition (EMD) combined with conditional mutual information de-noising algorithm for photoacoustic tomography is proposed in this paper. The simulation results and experimental results of photoacoustic signal de-noising achieve significant improvement of signal-to-noise ratio of photoacoustic signal and the enhancement of contrast of the reconstructed image. The simulation results and experimental results show that EMD combined with mutual information method improves at least 2 dB and 3 dB, respectively, more than traditional wavelet threshold method and band-pass filter. The improvement of contrast-to-noise ratio is more than 2 dB and 3 dB, respectively, more than traditional wavelet threshold method and band-pass filter.

DNA Aptamer-Based Activatable Probes for Photoacoustic Imaging in Living Mice.

DNA aptamers are a powerful class of molecules for sensing targets, but have been limited when applied to imaging in living animals because most aptamer probes are fluorescence-based, which limits imaging penetration depth. Photoacoustic (PA) imaging emerged as an alternative to MRI and X-ray tomography in biomedical imaging, due to its ability to afford high-resolution images at depths in the cm range. Despite its promise, PA imaging is limited by a lack of strategies to design selective and activatable probes for targets. To overcome this limitation, we report design and demonstration of PA probes based on DNA aptamers that can hybridize to DNA strands conjugated to a near-infrared fluorophore/quencher pair (IRDye 800CW/IRDye QC-1) with efficient contact quenching. Binding of the target triggered a release of the DNA strand with the quencher and thus relief of the contact quenching, resulting in a change of the PA signal ratio at 780/725 nm. Using thrombin as a model, a relationship was established between the thrombin concentrations and the PA ratio, with a dynamic range of 0–1000 nM and a limit of detection of 112 nM. Finally, in vivo PA imaging studies showed that the PA ratio increased significantly 45 min after injection of thrombin but not with injection of PBS as a vehicle control, demonstrating the first aptamer-based activatable PA probe for advanced molecular imaging in living mice. Since in vitro selection can obtain aptamers selective for many targets, the design demonstrated can be applied for PA imaging of a number of targets.

In Situ Construction and Characterization of Chlorin-Based Supramolecular Aggregates in Tumor Cells.

We demonstrate in situ construction and characterization of supramolecular aggregates from chlorin p6 (Cp6) molecules in tumor cells. Fully deprotonated Cp6 molecules in neutral condition were partially protonated inside the acidic lysosomes of cells and significantly increased the hydrophobicity of them that resulted in simultaneous formation of J-type aggregates. Importantly, the formation of J-aggregates was fully characterized in artificial tissues by UV-vis, circular dichroism (CD) and transmission electron microscope (TEM) techniques. Compared to the monomers, the J-aggregates exhibited 55-fold enhanced thermal conversion efficiency (η) at the optimal excitation wavelength (690 nm). The remarkably increased heat effect contributed to the stronger photoacoustic (PA) signals, leading to at least 2 orders of magnitude increase of the tumor-to-normal tissue ratio (T/N), which was defined as the PA signal ratio between tumor site and surrounding normal tissue. We envision that this proof-of-concept study will open a new way to develop tumor environment-induced self-assembly for variable biomedical applications.

Visualization of Protease Activity In Vivo Using an Activatable Photo-Acoustic Imaging Probe Based on CuS Nanoparticles

Herein, we for the first time report a novel activatable photoacoustic (PA) imaging nano-probe for in vivo detection of cancer-related matrix metalloproteinases (MMPs). A black hole quencher 3 (BHQ3) which absorbs red light is conjugated to near-infrared (NIR)-absorbing copper sulfide (CuS) nanoparticles via a MMP-cleavable peptide linker. The obtained CuS-peptide-BHQ3 (CPQ) nano-probe exhibits two distinctive absorption peaks at 630 nm and 930 nm. Inside the tumor microenviorment where MMPs present, the MMP-sensitive peptide would be cleaved, releasing BHQ3 from the CuS nanoparticles, the former of which as a small molecule is then rapidly cleared out from the tumor, whereas the latter of which as large nanoparticles would retain inside the tumor for a much longer period of time. As the result, the PA signal at 680 nm which is contributed by BHQ3 would be quickly diminished while that at 930 nm would be largely retained. The PA signal ratio of 680 nm / 930 nm could thus serve as an in vivo indicator of MMPs activity inside the tumor. Our work presents a novel strategy of in vivo sensing of MMPs based on PA imaging, which should offer remarkably improved detection depth compared with traditional optical imaging techniques.

Cylindrical mirror multipass Lissajous system for laser photoacoustic spectroscopy

A simple optical multiple reflection system is developed with two cylindrical concave mirrors at an appropriate spacing. The two cylindrical mirrors have different focal lengths and their principal sections are orthogonal. The alternate focusing of the two cylindrical mirrors at different direction keep the reflecting spots small. The reflecting spots fall on Lissajous patterns on the cylindrical mirrors. The mathematics for this optical system is described and the calculated coordinates of beam spots are very close matches of the experimental observations. The cylindrical mirror optical system is easy to construct and align, with a suitable method for obtaining long optical paths and a large number of passes in small volumes. In a photoacoustic spectrometer the beam family enhance the effective power in the photoacoustic cell and thus the signal-to-noise ratio of photoacoustic signal. An experimental result for photoacoustic spectrum of HDSe gas is given.