Photoacoustic imaging, which is based on the photoacoustic effect, has developed extensively over the last decade. Possessing many attractive characteristics such as the use of nonionizing electromagnetic waves, good resolution and contrast, portable …

Systolic and diastolic dysfunction of the left ventricle (LV) is a hallmark of most cardiac diseases. In vivo assessment of heart function in animal models, particularly mice, is essential to refining our understanding of cardiovascular disease processes. …

BACKGROUND: Heart failure is one of the leading causes of mortality and is primarily the final stage of several overload cardiomyopathies, preceded by an early adaptive hypertrophic response and characterized by coordinated cardiomyocyte growth, …

Deep-Tissue Photoacoustic Tomography of a Genetically Encoded Near-Infrared Fluorescent Probe …

Fluorescent proteins have become essential reporter molecules for studying life at the cellular and sub-cellular level, re-defining the ways in which we investigate biology. However, because of intense light scattering, most organisms and tissues remain …

Photoacoustic molecular imaging, combined with the reporter-gene technique, can provide a valuable tool for cancer research. The expression of the lacZ reporter gene can be imaged using photoacoustic imaging following the injection of X-gal, a …

In vivo bioluminescence imaging is a powerful tool for assessing tumor burden and quantifying therapeutic response in xenograft models. However, this technique exhibits significant variability as a consequence of differences in substrate administration, …

Pathologic axillary lymph node (ALN) status is an important prognostic factor for staging breast cancer. Currently, status is determined by histopathology following surgical excision of sentinel lymph node(s), which is an invasive, time consuming, and …

BACKGROUND: Intergenic variations on chromosome 4q25, close to the PITX2 transcription factor gene, are associated with atrial fibrillation (AF). We therefore tested whether adult hearts express PITX2 and whether variation in expression affects cardiac …

Acute myocardial infarction (MI) involves necrotic and apoptotic loss of cardiomyocytes. One strategy to salvage ischemic cardiomyocytes is to modulate gene expression to promote cell survival without disturbing normal cardiac function. MicroRNAs (miRNAs) …