Diagnostic cellular organization features extracted from autofluorescence images.

Area of Science:

• Biophotonics
• Biomedical Optics
• Medical Imaging

Background:

• Autofluorescence imaging of NADH provides insights into cellular metabolic states.
• Tissue morphology and metabolic changes are critical indicators of precancerous conditions.
• Noninvasive diagnostic methods are crucial for early detection of epithelial lesions.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate the potential of depth-resolved NADH autofluorescence imaging for differentiating normal and precancerous engineered tissues.
• To analyze the organizational properties of mitochondrial NADH using power spectral density (PSD) analysis.
• To establish a link between NADH organization, tissue depth, and precancerous state for diagnostic applications.

Main Methods:

• Acquisition of depth-resolved NADH autofluorescence images from engineered tissues.
• Analysis of the power spectral density (PSD) of autofluorescence images to characterize NADH organization.
• Quantification of power exponents of PSD functions at different tissue depths and precancerous states.

Main Results:

• NADH autofluorescence imaging successfully differentiated between normal and precancerous engineered tissues.
• An inverse power law behavior was observed in the PSD of NADH images, indicative of self-affine NADH organization (1-10 microm).
• Power exponents of PSD functions showed significant variations with tissue depth and precancerous state.

Conclusions:

• Depth-resolved NADH autofluorescence imaging reveals distinct organizational patterns of mitochondrial NADH in normal versus precancerous tissues.
• PSD analysis of NADH autofluorescence provides quantitative metrics reflecting morphological changes associated with precancer.
• This approach holds significant potential for the noninvasive clinical diagnosis of squamous epithelial lesions and tumors.