Application of the stretched exponential function to fluorescence lifetime imaging of biological tissue

Jan Siegel; K.C. Benny Lee; Stephen E. D. Webb; Sandrine Leveque-Fort; Mary J. Cole; Richard Jones; Keith Dowling; Paul M. W. French; M. John Lever

doi:10.1117/12.447407

2 November 2001 Application of the stretched exponential function to fluorescence lifetime imaging of biological tissue

Jan Siegel, K.C. Benny Lee, Stephen E. D. Webb, Sandrine Leveque-Fort, Mary J. Cole, Richard Jones, Keith Dowling, Paul M. W. French, M. John Lever

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 4431, Photon Migration, Optical Coherence Tomography, and Microscopy; (2001) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.447407
Event: European Conferences on Biomedical Optics, 2001, Munich, Germany

Abstract

The fluorescence decay in fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) is typically fitted to a multi-exponential model with discrete lifetimes. The interaction between fluorophores in heterogeneous samples (e.g. biological tissue) can, however, produce complex decay characteristics that do not correspond to such models. Although they appear to provide a better fit to fluorescence decay data than the assumption of a mono-exponential decay, the assumption of multiple discrete components is essentially arbitrary and often erroneous. The stretched exponential function (StrEF) describes fluorescence decay profiles using a continuous lifetime distribution as has been reported for tryptophan, being one of the main fluorophores in tissue. We have demonstrated that this model represents our time-domain FLIM data better than multi-exponential discrete decay components, yielding excellent contrast in tissue discrimination without compromising the goodness of fit, and it significantly decreases the required processing time. In addition, the stretched exponential decay model can provide a direct measure of the sample heterogeneity and the resulting heterogeneity map can reveal subtle tissue differences that other models fail to show.

Citation Download Citation

Jan Siegel, K.C. Benny Lee, Stephen E. D. Webb, Sandrine Leveque-Fort, Mary J. Cole, Richard Jones, Keith Dowling, Paul M. W. French, and M. John Lever "Application of the stretched exponential function to fluorescence lifetime imaging of biological tissue", Proc. SPIE 4431, Photon Migration, Optical Coherence Tomography, and Microscopy, (2 November 2001); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.447407

ACCESS THE FULL ARTICLE

INSTITUTIONAL
Select your institution to access the SPIE Digital Library.

SELECT YOUR INSTITUTION

PERSONAL
Sign in with your SPIE account to access your personal subscriptions or to use specific features such as save to my library, sign up for alerts, save searches, etc.

PERSONAL SIGN IN

No SPIE Account? Create one

PURCHASE THIS CONTENT

SUBSCRIBE TO DIGITAL LIBRARY

50 downloads per 1-year subscription

Members: $195

Non-members: $335 ADD TO CART

25 downloads per 1 - year subscription

Members: $145

Non-members: $250 ADD TO CART

PURCHASE SINGLE ARTICLE

Includes PDF, HTML & Video, when available