Skin optical clearing potential of disaccharides

Abstract

Skin optical clearing can significantly enhance the ability of biomedical optical imaging. Some alcohols and sugars have been selected to be optical clearing agents (OCAs). In this work, we paid attention to the optical clearing potential of disaccharides. Sucrose and maltose were chosen as typical disaccharides to compare with fructose, an excellent monosaccharide-OCA, by using molecular dynamics simulation and an ex vivo experiment. The experimental results indicated that the optical clearing efficacy of skin increases linearly with the concentration for each OCA. Both the theoretical predication and experimental results revealed that the two disaccharides exerted a better optical clearing potential than fructose at the same concentration, and sucrose is optimal. Since maltose has an extremely low saturation concentration, the other two OCAs with saturation concentrations were treated topically on rat skin in vivo, and optical coherence tomography imaging was applied to monitor the optical clearing process. The results demonstrated that sucrose could cause a more significant increase in imaging depth and signal intensity than fructose.

Optical clearing agent reduces scattering of light by the stratum corneum and modulates the physical properties of coenocytes via hydration

“…OCAs and NMF are both hygroscopic water‐soluble substances. However, for clearing, the interaction of hydrogen bonds between OCA and protein appears to be important for clearing . Thus, molecules possessing a greater number of OH‐ functional groups and long carbon chains are more likely to reduce light scattering efficiently.…”

“…The OCAs match the refractive indices of the scatters and their surrounding media, and then lead to the reduction of light scattering. OCAs enhance the penetration of light and optical image resolution . We use these properties of OCAs to reduce the level of light scattering by the SC.…”

Optical clearing of human dura mater by glucose solutions

“…For their clinical application, one should consider both their biocompatibility and their diffusion rate in the tissues. One of the promising candidates for the role of immersion agent is the aqueous glucose solution, which is allowed for clinical use [15], possesses sufficiently high refractive index and, as shown in other fibrous tissues [16][17][18], diffuses into a tissue with sufficient rate.…”

Visualization of skin microvascular dysfunction of type 1 diabetic mice using in vivo skin optical clearing method

“…Thus, we need a suitable and noninvasive skin imaging window for visualization of skin vascular dysfunction. Fortunately, in vivo skin optical clearing method has been developed and implemented in recent years, [26][27][28] which has excellently enhanced the imaging performances on various optical imaging modalities, including optical coherence tomography (OCT), [29][30][31] photoacoustic microscopy, 32,33 LSCI, [34][35][36][37][38][39] HSI, 40 and confocal microscopy. [41][42][43] In this study, based on the alloxan-induced type 1 diabetic (T1D) mice model, we evaluated NE-induced skin vascular responses (including blood flow and blood oxygen) along with the development of diabetes by LSCI and HSI, with the help of in vivo skin optical clearing method we developed previously.…”