Multiphoton tomography in differentiation of morphological and molecular subtypes of breast cancer: A quantitative analysis

• Published in: Journal of biophotonics Vol. 14; no. 5; pp. e202000471 - n/a
• Main Authors: Gubarkova, Ekaterina V., Elagin, Vadim V., Dudenkova, Varvara V., Kuznetsov, Sergey S., Karabut, Maria M., Potapov, Arseny L., Vorontsov, Dmitry A., Vorontsov, Alexey Y., Sirotkina, Marina A., Zagaynova, Elena V., Gladkova, Natalia D.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Weinheim WILEY‐VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA 01.05.2021; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: Biomarkers; Biopsy; Breast cancer; Collagen; collagen fibers; Elastin; Extracellular matrix; Fibers; Fluorescence; Invasiveness; Medical imaging; Morphology; multiphoton tomography (MPT); Quantitative analysis; quantitative assessment; Second harmonic generation; second harmonic generation (SHG); Tomography; Tumor cells; Tumors; two‐photon excited fluorescence (TPEF); multiphoton tomography (MPT); collagen fibers; breast cancer; quantitative assessment; second harmonic generation (SHG); two-photon excited fluorescence (TPEF)
• ISSN: 1864-063X; 1864-0648
• DOI: 10.1002/jbio.202000471

In this study multiphoton tomography, based on second harmonic generation (SHG), and two‐photon‐excited fluorescence (TPEF) was used to visualize both the extracellular matrix and tumor cells in different morphological and molecular subtypes of human breast cancer. It was shown, that quantified assessment of the SHG based imaging data has great potential to reveal differences of collagen quantity, organization and uniformity in both low‐ and highly‐ aggressive invasive breast cancers. The values of quantity and uniformity of the collagen fibers distribution were significantly higher in low‐aggressive breast cancer compared to the highly‐aggressive subtypes, while the value representing collagen organization was lower in the former type. Additionally, it was shown, that TPEF detection of elastin fibers and amyloid protein may be used as a biomarker of detection the low‐aggressive breast cancer subtype. Thus, TPEF/SHG imaging offers the possibility of becoming a useful tool for the rapid diagnosis of various subtypes of breast cancer during biopsy as well as for the intraoperative determinination of tumor‐positive resection margins. In this study the use of numerical, mixed approaches to assessing two‐photon excited fluorescence and second‐harmonic generation images makes it possible to determine the structural and functional state of non‐tumorous breast tissue as well as non‐invasive and invasive breast cancers with different morphological and molecular subtypes. The results showed that there are significant differences in both collagen quantity and fiber organization between highly‐ aggressive and low‐ aggressive invasive breast cancer subtypes.