Metabolic imaging in microregions of tumors and normal tissues with bioluminescence and photon counting

A method has been developed for metabolic imaging on a microscopic level in tumors, tumor spheroids, and normal tissues. The technique makes it possible to determine the spatial distribution of glucose, lactate, and ATP in absolute terms at similar locations within tissues or cell aggregates. The substrate distributions are registered in serial cryostat sections from tissue cryobiopsies or from frozen spheroids with the use of bioluminescence reactions. The light emission is measured directly by a special imaging photon counting system enabling on-line image analysis. The technique has been applied to human breast cancer xenografts, to spheroids originating from a human colon adenocarcinoma, and to skeletal rat muscle. Preliminary data obtained indicate that heterogeneities in the substrate distributions measured are much more pronounced in tumors than in normal tissue. There was no obvious correlation among the three quantities measured at similar locations within the tissues. The distribution of ATP corresponded well with the histological structure of larger spheroids; values were low in the necrotic center and high in the viable rim of these cell aggregates.