Nuriya Mutsuo
Department of Pharmacology, Keio University School of Medicine.
Nihon Yakurigaku Zasshi. 2022;157(5):371-375. doi: 10.1254/fpj.22060.
Visualization and measurement of drugs themselves as well as biological responses to those drugs are crucial in pharmacological research. To this end, various fluorescent dyes and proteins have been developed. Despite such progresses, there still remains technical difficulties to overcome in bioimaging that keep many pharmacological targets and phenomena invisible. Outside the fields of biology where fluorescence and luminescence prevail, variety of other optical phenomena are well known and utilized. These optical phenomena can shed unique lights on biological phenomena based on their specific physical and chemical properties. Although applications of these optical phenomena to biology are yet to be explored, they have high potentials in realizing visualization and measurement of currently invisible targets and phenomena, and thereby bringing new insights into pharmacological research. Thus, here I will introduce Raman scattering microscopy that visualize vibration of functional groups as an alternative imaging platform to fluorescence and luminescence. Special focus will be put on two recent technical advancements; namely, nonlinear Raman scattering microscopy that utilizes multi-photon effect of highly tissue penetrating near-infrared lights, and Raman-tag that realizes tagging of targets that could not have been labeled, combination of which is expected to pave a way toward imaging previously invisible targets in pharmacology.
在药理学研究中，对药物本身以及药物引起的生物学反应进行可视化和测量至关重要。为此，人们已经开发了各种荧光染料和蛋白质。尽管取得了这些进展，但在生物成像中仍存在一些技术难题需要克服，这些难题使得许多药理学靶点和现象难以被观察到。在荧光和发光占主导的生物学领域之外，还有许多其他光学现象为人所知并得到应用。这些光学现象基于其特定的物理和化学性质，能够为生物学现象提供独特的见解。尽管这些光学现象在生物学中的应用尚待探索，但它们在实现对当前不可见的靶点和现象的可视化和测量方面具有巨大潜力，从而为药理学研究带来新的启示。因此，在这里我将介绍拉曼散射显微镜，它可以将官能团的振动可视化，作为荧光和发光之外的另一种成像平台。特别关注最近的两项技术进展：即利用高组织穿透性近红外光的多光子效应的非线性拉曼散射显微镜，以及实现对无法标记的靶点进行标记的拉曼标签，预计这两者的结合将为药理学中对以前不可见的靶点进行成像铺平道路。
