Two-photon fluorescence and second-harmonic generation imaging of collagen in human tissue based on multiphoton microscopy.

Multiphoton microscopic imaging of collagen plays an important role in noninvasive diagnoses of human tissue. In this study, two-photon fluorescence and second-harmonic generation (SHG) imaging of collagen in human skin dermis and submucosa of colon and stomach tissues were investigated based on multiphoton microscopy (MPM). Our results show that multiphoton microscopic image of collagen bundles exhibits apparently different pattern in human tissues. The collagen bundles can simultaneously reveal its SHG and two-photon excited fluorescence images in the submucosa of colon and stomach, whereas it solely emit SHG signal in skin dermis. The intensity spectral information from tissues further demonstrated the above results. This indicates that collagen bundles have completely different space arrangement in these tissues. Our experimental results bring more detailed information of collagen for the application of MPM in human noninvasive imaging.