title: Two-photon excited hemoglobin fluorescence provides contrast mechanism for label-free imaging of microvasculature in vivo.
abstract: Direct visualization of microvasculature provides significant insights in microcirculation and critically impacts the diagnosis and treatment of microcirculatory diseases. Recently, we discovered that the high-energy Soret fluorescence of hemoglobin peaked at 438 nm with an extremely short lifetime becomes strongly visible under two-photon excitation. Based on the distinct spectral and temporal characteristics of hemoglobin fluorescence, we demonstrated that two-photon fluorescence microscopy could become a powerful tool for label-free in vivo imaging of microvasculature in tissue.
authors.affiliation: Department of Electronic and Computer Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China.
authors.forename: Dong
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Li
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Zheng
authors.forename: Yan
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Zeng
authors.forename: Yi
authors.initials: Y
authors.lastname: Luo
authors.forename: Jianan Y
authors.initials: JY
authors.lastname: Qu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D006224:Cricetinae; D006454:Hemoglobins / Q000378:metabolism*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional; D055806:Microvessels / Q000378:metabolism*; D057054:Molecular Imaging / Q000379:methods*; D009055:Mouth / Q000098:blood supply; D017785:Photons; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D006454:Hemoglobins