Functional histology of glioma vasculature by FTIR imaging

Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) imaging has been used to investigate brain tumor angiogenesis using a mice solid tumor model and bare-gold (∅ 25 nm) or BaSO₄ (∅ 500 nm) nanoparticles (NP) injected into blood vasculature. FTIR images of 20-μm-thick tissue sections were used for chemical histology of healthy and tumor areas. Distribution of BaSO₄-NP (using the 1,218–1,159 cm⁻¹ spectral interval) revealed clearly all details of blood vasculature with morphological abnormalities of tumor capillaries, while Au-NP (using the 1,046–1,002 cm⁻¹ spectral interval) revealed also diffusion properties of leaky blood vessels. Diffusion of Au-NP out of vascular space reached 64 ± 29 μm, showing the fenestration of “leaky” tumor blood vessels, which should allow small NP (<100 nm, as for Au-NP) to diffuse almost freely, while large NP should not (as for BaSO₄-NP in this study). Therefore, we propose to develop FTIR imaging as a convenient tool for functional molecular histology imaging of brain tumor vasculature, both for identifying blood capillaries and for determining the extravascular diffusion space offered by vessel fenestration.