title: Watching stem cells in the skin of living mice noninvasively.
abstract: We demonstrate noninvasive, high-resolution multiphoton tomography of nestin-expressing stem cells of hair follicles in living transgenic nude mice. An imaging system comprised of a compact femtosecond laser, 3D scan head mounted on a flexible mechano-optical articulated arm for simultaneous intra-tissue fluorescence and second harmonic detection (SHG) detection was used. This noninvasive method enables long-term in vivo tracking of intra-tissue stem cells in living animals. Multiphoton animal sectioning with subcellular resolution can visualize the real-time behavior of single stem cells in their native tissue microenvironment.
authors.affiliation: AntiCancer Inc., San Diego, CA, USA.
authors.forename: Aisada
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Uchugonova
authors.forename: Robert M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Hoffman
authors.forename: Martin
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Weinigel
authors.forename: Karsten
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Koenig
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D004867:Equipment Design; D007381:Intermediate Filament Proteins; D007834:Lasers; D051379:Mice; D008819:Mice, Nude; D008822:Mice, Transgenic; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; D064231:Nestin; D012867:Skin / Q000166:cytology*; D013234:Stem Cells / Q000166:cytology*; D014054:Tomography / Q000295:instrumentation*
chemical_list: D007381:Intermediate Filament Proteins; D009419:Nerve Tissue Proteins; C577485:Nes protein, mouse; D064231:Nestin