Quantitative photoacoustic imaging of nanoparticles in cells and tissues.

Quantitative visualization of nanoparticles in cells and tissues, while preserving the spatial information, is very challenging. A photoacoustic imaging technique to depict the presence and quantity of nanoparticles is presented. This technique is based on the dependence of the photoacoustic signal on both the nanoparticle quantity and the laser fluence. Quantitative photoacoustic imaging is a robust technique that does not require knowledge of the local fluence, but a relative change in the fluence. This eliminates the need for sophisticated methods or models to determine the energy distribution of light in turbid media. Quantitative photoacoustic imaging was first applied to nanoparticle-loaded cells, and quantitation was validated by inductively coupled plasma mass spectrometry. Quantitative photoacoustic imaging was then extended to xenograft tumor tissue sections, and excellent agreement with traditional histopathological analysis was demonstrated. Our results suggest that quantitative photoacoustic imaging may be used in many applications including the determination of the efficiency and effectiveness of molecular targeting strategies for cell studies and animal models, the quantitative assessment of photoacoustic contrast agent biodistribution, and the validation of in vivo photoacoustic imaging.