Real-Time Longitudinal Evaluation of Tumor Blood Vessels Using a Compact Preclinical Fluorescence Imaging System

Hoibin Jeong, Song-Rae Kim, Yujung Kang, Huisu Kim, Seo-Young Kim, Su-Hyeon Cho, Kil-Nam Kim
2021 Biosensors  
Tumor angiogenesis is enhanced in all types of tumors to supply oxygen and nutrients for their growth and metastasis. With the development of anti-angiogenic drugs, the importance of technology that closely monitors tumor angiogenesis has also been emerging. However, to date, the technology for observing blood vessels requires specialized skills with expensive equipment, thereby limiting its applicability only to the laboratory setting. Here, we used a preclinical optical imaging system for
more » ... l animals and, for the first time, observed, in real time, the entire process of blood vessel development in tumor-bearing mice injected with indocyanine green. Time-lapse sequential imaging revealed blood vessel volume and blood flow dynamics on a microscopic scale. Upon analyzing fluorescence dynamics at each stage of tumor progression, vessel volume and blood flow were found to increase as the tumor developed. Conversely, these vascular parameters decreased when the mice were treated with angiogenesis inhibitors, which suggests that the effects of drugs targeting angiogenesis can be rapidly and easily screened. The results of this study may help evaluate the efficacy of angiogenesis-targeting drugs by facilitating the observation of tumor blood vessels easily in a laboratory unit without large and complex equipment.
doi:10.3390/bios11120471 pmid:34940228 pmcid:PMC8699707 fatcat:c4wzhvszonbrfc3zlfa53ljm4y