Department of Physics and Electrical Engineering, Institute for Ultrafast Spectroscopy and Lasers, The City College of the City University of New York, New York, New York, USA.
Shu Chien-Gene Lay Department of Bioengineering, University of California San Diego, La Jolla, San Diego, USA.
J Biophotonics. 2024 Feb;17(2):e202300344. doi: 10.1002/jbio.202300344. Epub 2023 Dec 12.
This study reports on the first use of the optical Kerr effect (OKE) in breast cancer tissue. This proposed optical biopsy method utilizes a Femtosecond Optical Kerr Gate to detect changes in dielectric relaxation and conductivity created by a cancerous infection. Here, the temporal behavior of the OKE is tracked in normal and cancerous samples of human and mouse breast. These tissues display a double peaked temporal structure and its decay rate changes depending on the tissue's infection status. The decay of the secondary peak, attributed to ultrafast plasma response, indicates that the tissue's conductivity has doubled once infected. A slower molecular contribution to the Kerr effect can also be observed in healthy tissues. These findings suggest two possible biomarkers for the use of OKE in optical biopsy. Both markers arise from alterations in the infected tissue's cellular structure, which changes the rate at which electronic and molecular processes occur.
本研究报告了光学克尔效应（OKE）在乳腺癌组织中的首次应用。该拟议的光学活检方法利用飞秒光克尔门来检测由癌变感染引起的介电弛豫和电导率的变化。在这里，跟踪了正常和癌变的人乳和鼠乳样本中 OKE 的时间行为。这些组织显示出双峰时间结构，其衰减率取决于组织的感染状态。归因于超快等离子体响应的次级峰的衰减表明，组织的电导率一旦感染就增加了一倍。在健康组织中也可以观察到克尔效应的较慢分子贡献。这些发现为 OKE 在光学活检中的应用提供了两个可能的生物标志物。这两个标志物都源于感染组织细胞结构的改变，这改变了电子和分子过程发生的速度。
