In vivo observation of age-related structural changes of dermal collagen in human facial skin using collagen-sensitive second harmonic generation microscope equipped with 1250-nm mode-locked Cr:Forsterite laser

Abstract. In vivo visualization of human skin aging is demonstrated using a Cr:Forsterite (Cr:F) laser-based, collagen-sensitive second harmonic generation (SHG) microscope. The deep penetration into human skin, as well as the specific sensitivity to collagen molecules, achieved by this microscope enables us to clearly visualize age-related structural changes of collagen fiber in the reticular dermis. Here we investigated intrinsic aging and/or photoaging in the male facial skin. Young subjects show dense distributions of thin collagen fibers, whereas elderly subjects show coarse distributions of thick collagen fibers. Furthermore, a comparison of SHG images between young and elderly subjects with and without a recent life history of excessive sun exposure show that a combination of photoaging with intrinsic aging significantly accelerates skin aging. We also perform image analysis based on two-dimensional Fourier transformation of the SHG images and extracted an aging parameter for human skin. The in vivo collagen-sensitive SHG microscope will be a powerful tool in fields such as cosmeceutical sciences and anti-aging dermatology.

[1]  T. Hamilton,et al.  Reduced type I and type III procollagens in photodamaged adult human skin. , 1995, The Journal of investigative dermatology.

[2]  Chi-Kuang Sun,et al.  In vivo harmonic generation biopsy of human skin. , 2009, Journal of biomedical optics.

[3]  Victor Siskind,et al.  Sun exposure and interaction with family history in risk of melanoma, Queensland, Australia , 2002, International journal of cancer.

[4]  Hans Georg Breunig,et al.  Current developments in clinical multiphoton tomography , 2010, BiOS.

[5]  Tsung-Han Tsai,et al.  In vivo developmental biology study using noninvasive multi-harmonic generation microscopy. , 2003, Optics express.

[6]  Chen-Yuan Dong,et al.  Evaluating cutaneous photoaging by use of multiphoton fluorescence and second-harmonic generation microscopy. , 2005, Optics letters.

[7]  Takeshi Yasui,et al.  Observation of dermal collagen fiber in wrinkled skin using polarization-resolved second-harmonic-generation microscopy. , 2009, Optics express.

[8]  Wei Xia,et al.  Matrix-degrading metalloproteinases in photoaging. , 2009, The journal of investigative dermatology. Symposium proceedings.

[9]  Tsung-Han Tsai,et al.  Multiharmonic-generation biopsy of skin. , 2003, Optics letters.

[10]  Iris Riemann,et al.  High-resolution multiphoton tomography of human skin with subcellular spatial resolution and picosecond time resolution. , 2003, Journal of biomedical optics.

[11]  J. Bouwes Bavinck,et al.  The influence of painful sunburns and lifetime sun exposure on the risk of actinic keratoses, seborrheic warts, melanocytic nevi, atypical nevi, and skin cancer. , 2003, The Journal of investigative dermatology.

[12]  R. Marks,et al.  Reduction of solar keratoses by regular sunscreen use. , 1993, The New England journal of medicine.

[13]  Monal R. Mehta,et al.  Fourier transform-second-harmonic generation imaging of biological tissues. , 2009, Optics express.

[14]  Stefan Puschmann,et al.  Approach to quantify human dermal skin aging using multiphoton laser scanning microscopy. , 2012, Journal of biomedical optics.

[15]  Tsung-Han Tsai,et al.  Optical biopsy of fixed human skin with backward-collected optical harmonics signals. , 2005, Optics express.

[16]  J. Voorhees,et al.  c-Jun-dependent inhibition of cutaneous procollagen transcription following ultraviolet irradiation is reversed by all-trans retinoic acid. , 2000, The Journal of clinical investigation.

[17]  J. Voorhees,et al.  Pathophysiology of premature skin aging induced by ultraviolet light. , 1997, The New England journal of medicine.

[18]  Karsten König,et al.  In vivo assessment of human skin aging by multiphoton laser scanning tomography. , 2006, Optics letters.

[19]  Yukihiko Hara,et al.  Green tea polyphenols prevent ultraviolet light-induced oxidative damage and matrix metalloproteinases expression in mouse skin. , 2004, The Journal of investigative dermatology.

[20]  L Robert,et al.  Morphometric analysis of dermal collagen fibers in normal human skin as a function of age. , 1991, Archives of gerontology and geriatrics.

[21]  H. S. de Bruijn,et al.  In vivo nonlinear spectral imaging in mouse skin. , 2006, Optics express.

[22]  Mayandi Sivaguru,et al.  Quantitative analysis of collagen fiber organization in injured tendons using Fourier transform-second harmonic generation imaging. , 2010, Optics express.

[23]  A. Yariv.  Introduction to optical electronics , 1971 .

[24]  C. Griffiths,et al.  The clinical identification and quantification of photodamage , 1992, The British journal of dermatology.

[25]  Chi-Kuang Sun,et al.  In vivo optical biopsy of hamster oral cavity with epi-third-harmonic-generation microscopy. , 2006, Optics express.

[26]  A. Pena,et al.  Spectroscopic analysis of keratin endogenous signal for skin multiphoton microscopy. , 2005, Optics express.

[27]  Chen-Yuan Dong,et al.  Second harmonic generation microscopy: principles and applications to disease diagnosis , 2011 .

[28]  Chi-Kuang Sun,et al.  In vivo and ex vivo imaging of intra-tissue elastic fibers using third-harmonic-generation microscopy. , 2007, Optics express.