Vibrational imaging of metabolic dynamics in animals by DO-SRS (Conference Presentation)

Metabolic dynamics is essential to unraveling the mechanistic basis of many biological processes, and cannot be imaged in vivo by using traditional methods. Here we developed a new method that combines D2O probing and SRS (DO-SRS) to visualize metabolic dynamics in live animals. The enzymatic incorporation of D2O-derived deuterium (D) into biomolecules will generate carbon-deuterium (C-D) bonds in macromolecules. We developed spectral unmixing methods to obtain C-D signals with macromolecular selectivity, and applied DO-SRS to reveal metabolic dynamics in C. elegans, zebrafish, and mice, to study developmental biology, aging, and tissue homeostasis, and to visualize tumor boundaries and metabolic heterogeneity.