Wellman Center for Photomedicine, Harvard Medical School, Massachusetts General Hospital, Charlestown, MA.
Photochem Photobiol. 2018 Jul;94(4):624-632. doi: 10.1111/php.12916. Epub 2018 Apr 24.
The natural pigments known as melanins are thought to play a role in the etiology and progression of melanoma, but many of their roles are currently not well understood. While quantification of melanins have, up until now, have been performed in bulk tissue ex vivo, new imaging technologies have unlocked the means to visualize and quantify melanins at the sub-cellular scale. The nonlinear imaging methods known as pump-probe, coherent Raman, and sum-frequency absorption microscopies provide subcellular resolution imaging of melanins, enabling label-free, longitudinal quantification of both eumelanin and pheomelanin in situ and in vivo. These nonlinear imaging toolkits have been well proven in both animal models and human samples, moving them tantalizingly close to clinical application. Future efforts integrating these tools into practical, mobile imaging systems will provide immense benefit both to clinical research and practice.
被称为黑色素的天然色素被认为在黑色素瘤的病因和进展中起作用，但它们的许多作用目前还不是很清楚。虽然黑色素的定量分析迄今为止都是在离体的大块组织中进行的，但新的成像技术已经为在亚细胞尺度上可视化和定量黑色素提供了手段。被称为泵浦探针、相干拉曼和和频吸收显微镜的非线性成像方法提供了黑色素的亚细胞分辨率成像，能够实现真黑色素和褐黑色素在体内和体外的无标记、纵向定量。这些非线性成像工具在动物模型和人类样本中都得到了很好的验证，这使得它们非常接近于临床应用。未来将这些工具整合到实用的移动成像系统中的努力将为临床研究和实践带来巨大的益处。
