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Since the early nineties, multiphoton microscopy has become a powerful tool to investigate morphological and physiological parameters in vivo or on thick ex vivo sections. To stain structures of interest many dyes have been developed and two-photon properties (cross section, excitation and emission spectra) of existing ones have been characterized. Recently, our team has shown a new property of sulforhodamine B (SRB). This dye has the ability to bind specifically elastic fibers. The observation of elastin using its endofluorescence properties was already widely described but required long exposition delays up to 10s and the imaging depth was limited to approximately 50 μm. With a multiphoton microscope and SRB, it is possible to observe elastic fibers directly in the living animal or on thick tissue sections with a micrometric spatial resolution in less than one second per image with an imaging depth of ~ 200 μm. Moreover, with an appropriate set of filters, we can acquire simultaneously the SRB and the second harmonic generation (SHG) signals of collagen fibers. Here, we report various applications of this new staining method on different arterial rings. The layers of the arterial wall, as well as, the elastic lamellae are observed and are numbered. With the addition of a nuclear stain such as the Hoechst 33342, a more accurate morphological study of the arterial walls can be accomplished. Finally, an intravital observation of the saphenous artery morphology is presented.

Knowledge of the volume of blood per unit volume of brain tissue is important for understanding brain function in health and disease. We describe a novel method using two-photon laser scanning microscopy to obtain the local blood volume in the cortex of the anesthetized mouse. We infused fluorescent dyes in the circulating blood and imaged the blood vessels, including the capillaries, to a depth of 400 microns below the dura at the brain surface. Blood volume was calculated by normalizing the total fluorescence measured at each depth. This method, which dispenses with form recognition, is rapid and only weakly sensitive to background noise; it could be extended to measure the leakiness of the blood vessels.

Dynamic Magnetic Resonance Imaging (T1-mapping) using the Gadolinium complex Gadomer-17, was applied to characterize the vascular permeability of human glioma xenografts implanted in nude mice. We aimed at measuring permeability differences in two types of glioma xenograft lines with a known difference in perfusion status. The T1-data could be analyzed according to the Tofts-Kermode compartmental model for modeling tracer kinetics to vascular permeability. This vascular permeability was mapped as the permeability surface area product per unit of leakage volume (k). The two tumor types displayed different k-maps. For the fast growing E102 tumor, we observed a homogeneous distribution of the vascular permeability across the tumor with a mean k-value of (0.207 plus or minus 0.027) min-1. However, for the slowly growing E106 tumor, we could distinguish four different regions with different permeability characteristics: a well-perfused rim [k equals (0.30 plus or minus 0.09) min-1], regions at the inner side of the tumor with lower permeability [k equals (0.130 plus or minus 0.019) min-1], regions at the inner side of the tumor around necrotic regions demonstrating locally increased permeability [k equals (0.33 plus or minus 0.11) min-1], and necrotic regions.© (1999) COPYRIGHT SPIE--The International Society for Optical Engineering. Downloading of the abstract is permitted for personal use only.