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Author Spotlight: Understanding Age-Related Macular Degeneration Pathophysiology with QAF Workflow
Published on: May 26, 2023
HYPERSPECTRAL AUTOFLUORESCENCE IMAGING OF DRUSEN AND RETINAL PIGMENT EPITHELIUM IN DONOR EYES WITH AGE-RELATED
Yuehong Tong1, Tal Ben Ami, Sungmin Hong
1*Department of Ophthalmology, New York University School of Medicine, New York, New York; †Department of Computer Science and Engineering, New York University Tandon School of Engineering, Brooklyn, New York; ‡Leibniz Institute of Photonic Technology, Jena, Germany; §Institute of Physical Chemistry and Abbe Center of Photonics, Friedrich Schiller University of Jena, Jena, Germany; ¶Department of Ophthalmology, Medical University of South Carolina, Charleston, South Carolina; **Department of Ophthalmology, University of Alabama School of Medicine, Birmingham, Alabama; and ††Department of Ophthalmology, University Hospital of Würzburg, Würzburg, Germany.
Purpose:
To elucidate the molecular pathogenesis of age-related macular degeneration (AMD) and interpretation of fundus autofluorescence imaging, the authors identified spectral autofluorescence characteristics of drusen and retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) in donor eyes with AMD.
Methods:
Macular RPE/Bruch membrane flat mounts were prepared from 5 donor eyes with AMD. In 12 locations (1-3 per eye), hyperspectral autofluorescence images in 10-nm-wavelength steps were acquired at 2 excitation wavelengths (λex 436, 480 nm). A nonnegative tensor factorization algorithm was used to recover 5 abundant emission spectra and their corresponding spatial localizations.
Results:
At λex 436 nm, the authors consistently localized a novel spectrum (SDr) with a peak emission near 510 nm in drusen and sub-RPE deposits. Abundant emission spectra seen previously (S0 in Bruch membrane and S1, S2, and S3 in RPE lipofuscin/melanolipofuscin, respectively) also appeared in AMD eyes, with the same shapes and peak wavelengths as in normal tissue. Lipofuscin/melanolipofuscin spectra localizations in AMD eyes varied widely in their overlap with drusen, ranging from none to complete.
Conclusion:
An emission spectrum peaking at ∼510 nm (λex 436 nm) appears to be sensitive and specific for drusen and sub-RPE deposits. One or more abundant spectra from RPE organelles exhibit characteristic relationships with drusen.
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