15/06 – Chiara STRINGARI : Label-free metabolic imaging of living tissues by Fluorescence Lifetime Microscopy of endogenous biomarkers

SPPIN’s webinar winter-spring 2021, 15th june at 10h30, online – Ask link to a SPPIN member.

Chiara STRINGARI – Laboratory for Optics and Biosciences, CNRS, INSERM, École Polytechnique, France

Label-free metabolic imaging of living tissues by Fluorescence Lifetime Microscopy of endogenous biomarkers

Metabolism is emerging as an important hallmark of several physiological and pathological processes such as stem cell differentiation, embryo development, inflammation, neurodegenerative diseases and cancer. Understanding metabolic processes and mapping redox ratio changes in vivo in real time at the cellular level in the tissue native microenvironment is of fundamental importance for the study of these processes.

In my talk I will discuss the potential of label-free optical techniques for non-invasive monitoring cell metabolism in living tissues by combining non-linear microscopy and the use of endogenous fluorescent biomarkers naturally present in cells and tissues. Functional images of tissues autofluorescence are provided by two-photon-excitation, fluorescence lifetime microscopy (FLIM) and the coenzymes nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide (NADH) and flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD), the two major cofactors of cellular redox reactions in the cell and central regulators of energy production and metabolism. I will discuss how FLIM of metabolic coenzymes NADH and FAD reveals the richness and complexity of several metabolic processes in intact tissues with minimal phototoxicity and can be widely applied non-invasively for longitudinal studies in vivo.