Frequency Domain Imaging of Oxygen Tension in the Mouse Retina

Abstract

Insufficient oxygen delivery and retinal hypoxia have been implicated as causal for the development of many devastating diseases of the eye, including diabetic retinopathy, glaucoma, and retinopathy of prematurity. The imaging of oxygen tension (PO₂) using the phosphorescence lifetime measuring technique has received considerable attention in the literature and its potential for advancing our understanding of the oxygen dynamics in the retina is well recognized. It is also recognized that, as the number of transgenic and knockout mouse models displaying the characteristics of human retinal diseases rapidly increases, an ability to image PO₂ in these very small eyes will likely be of great benefit. In this study, we describe and test new instrumentation for generating maps of PO₂ in the mouse retina. These maps are generated from the phosphorescence lifetimes of injected palladium-porphyrin probes using a frequency-domain measurement.