In Vivo Assessment of Deep Vascular Patterns in Murine Colitis Using Optoacoustic Mesoscopic Imaging.

Area of Science:

• Medical Imaging
• Gastroenterology
• Biomedical Engineering

Background:

• Vascular morphology analysis is crucial for assessing disease activity and therapeutic responses.
• Raster-scanning optoacoustic mesoscopy (RSOM) visualizes superficial vascular networks in vivo.
• Transrectal absorber guide RSOM (TAG-RSOM) extends visualization to deep colon vascular networks in murine colitis models.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop an image-processing pipeline for TAG-RSOM data to accelerate its use in inflammatory bowel disease research.
• To compare different image segmentation methods for quantifying deep vascular patterns in murine colitis.

Main Methods:

• Utilized optoacoustic data from a chemically-induced murine colitis model.
• Applied and compared various image segmentation techniques to TAG-RSOM data.
• Quantified vascular network length, complexity, blood volume, and vessel diameter.

Main Results:

• The developed pipeline enables label-free, in vivo assessment of vascular network changes.
• Different segmentation methods were evaluated for their effectiveness in visualizing and quantifying deep vascular patterns.
• Key vascular parameters like network length, complexity, blood volume, and vessel diameter were measured.

Conclusions:

• The image-processing pipeline facilitates in vivo assessment of vascular changes in murine colitis.
• This technology has broad applications for inflammatory bowel disease research, aiding in disease monitoring and therapeutic evaluation.