Faculty of Engineering and Institute of Nanotechnology and Advanced Materials, Bar-Ilan University, Ramat Gan, Israel.
Cardiac Research Laboratories at the Felsenstein Medical Research Center and the Cardiology Department, Rabin Medical Center, Petah Tikva, Israel.
J Biophotonics. 2019 Jan;12(1):e201800218. doi: 10.1002/jbio.201800218. Epub 2018 Oct 11.
Atherosclerosis (AS), the leading cause of morbidity and mortality in cardiovascular disease, needs an early detection for treatment and prevention of fatal events. Here, for the first time, we applied gold nanorods (GNRs)-assisted diffusion reflection (DR), a noninvasive technique for in vivo detection of AS in a high-fat-diet-induced c57bl mouse model, which resembles the manifestation of AS in humans. DR simply detects the change in light reflection profile of tissue due to the accumulation of GNRs in the AS plaques and enables clear detection of AS lesions in carotid and femoral arteries of these hyperlipidemic mice. After 24 hours post-GNRs injection, DR showed the highest efficiency of AS detection. Moreover, the sensitivity of the DR method is much higher than computed tomography (CT) and is comparable to ex vivo high-resolution CT. Our results strongly suggest that the DR method can detect early atherosclerotic lesions in a sensitive and specific manner.
动脉粥样硬化（AS）是心血管疾病发病率和死亡率的主要原因，需要早期发现以进行治疗和预防致命事件。在这里，我们首次应用金纳米棒（GNRs）辅助扩散反射（DR）技术，这是一种非侵入性技术，可用于在高脂肪饮食诱导的 c57bl 小鼠模型中体内检测 AS，该模型类似于人类 AS 的表现。DR 技术通过检测组织中由于 GNRs 在 AS 斑块中的积累而导致的光反射轮廓的变化，从而能够清晰地检测出这些高脂血症小鼠颈动脉和股动脉中的 AS 病变。在注射 GNRs 后 24 小时，DR 显示出对 AS 检测的最高效率。此外，DR 方法的灵敏度远高于计算机断层扫描（CT），并且与离体高分辨率 CT 相当。我们的研究结果强烈表明，DR 方法可以以敏感和特异的方式检测早期动脉粥样硬化病变。
