title: A useful way to develop effective in vivo skin optical clearing agents.
abstract: Skin optical clearing has shown tremendous potential in improving various optical imaging performances, but there is some certain blindness in screening out high-efficiency in vivo optical clearing methods. In this work, three optical clearing agents: sucrose (Suc), fructose (Fruc) and PEG-400 (PEG), and two chemical penetration enhancers: propylene glycol (PG) and thiazone (Thiaz) were used. PEG was firstly mixed with the two penetration enhancers, respectively, and then mixed with Fruc and Suc, respectively, to obtain six kinds of skin optical clearing agents (SOCAs). Optical coherence tomography angiography was applied to monitor SOCAs-induced changes in imaging performances, skin optical properties, refractive index mismatching extent, and permeability rate. Experimental results demonstrated that PEG+Thiaz+Suc has the optimal capacity in enhancing the imaging performances, decreasing the scattering and the refractive index mismatching since Thiaz is superior to PG, and Suc is superior to Fruc. This study indicates that the optimal SOCA can be obtained directly by means of additionally adding or replacing the similar category substance in preexisting SOCAs with some more effective reagents. It not only provides an optimal SOCA, but also provides a useful way to develop more effective SOCAs. Cross-section skin structural texture (a), reconstructed blood flow distribution information (b), before or after treated with different SOCAs.
authors.affiliation: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei, P.R. China.|Department of Biomedical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Biomedical Photonics, Ministry of Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Rui
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Shi
authors.affiliation: Department of Optical Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, ZheJiang University, 38 Zheda Road, Hangzhou, 310027, Zhejiang, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Li
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Guo
authors.affiliation: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei, P.R. China.|Department of Biomedical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Biomedical Photonics, Ministry of Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Chao
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Zhang
authors.affiliation: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei, P.R. China.|Department of Biomedical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Biomedical Photonics, Ministry of Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Wei
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Feng
authors.affiliation: Department of Optical Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, ZheJiang University, 38 Zheda Road, Hangzhou, 310027, Zhejiang, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Peng
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Li
authors.affiliation: Department of Optical Science and Engineering, State Key Laboratory of Modern Optical Instrumentation, ZheJiang University, 38 Zheda Road, Hangzhou, 310027, Zhejiang, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Zhihua
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.affiliation: Britton Chance Center for Biomedical Photonics, Wuhan National Laboratory for Optoelectronics, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei, P.R. China.|Department of Biomedical Engineering, Key Laboratory of Biomedical Photonics, Ministry of Education, Huazhong University of Science and Technology, 1037 Luoyu Road, Wuhan, 430074, Hubei, P.R. China.
authors.forename: Dan
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Zhu
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D005632:Fructose; D008297:Male; D008807:Mice, Inbred BALB C; D061848:Optical Imaging; D010539:Permeability; D011092:Polyethylene Glycols; D019946:Propylene Glycol; D012867:Skin / Q000000981:diagnostic imaging*; D013395:Sucrose; D013829:Thiadiazines
chemical_list: D013829:Thiadiazines; D005632:Fructose; D011092:Polyethylene Glycols; D013395:Sucrose; D019946:Propylene Glycol; C000595213:polyethylene glycol 400; C012864:dazomet
keywords: optical clearing agents; optical clearing efficacy; optical coherence tomography angiography; penetration enhancers; skin