Second-harmonic generation as a DNA malignancy indicator of prostate glandular epithelial cells

This paper first demonstrates second-harmonic generation (SHG) in the intact cell nucleus, which acts as an optical indicator of DNA malignancy in prostate glandular epithelial cells. Within a scanning region of $2.7~\mu$m$\times 2.7~\mu$m in cell nuclei, SHG signals produced from benign prostatic hyperplasia (BPH) and prostate carcinoma (PC) tissues (mouse model C57BL/6) have been investigated. Statistical analyses ($t$ test) of a total of 405 measurements (204 nuclei from BPH and 201 nuclei from PC) show that SHG signals from BPH and PC have a distinct difference ($p < 0.05)$, suggesting a potential optical method of revealing very early malignancy in prostate glandular epithelial cells based upon induced biochemical and/or biophysical modifications in DNA.