Abstract

Autofluorescence spectroscopy has been a widely explored noninvasive technique to detect the precancerous development in epithelial tissue, where NADH and FAD fluorescence are metabolism related. In this study, we investigated the methods to monitor cellular metabolism based on the ratio of NADH over FAD fluorescence and the ratio of free NADH and protein-bound NADH fluorescence, respectively. The signals of free NADH, protein-bound NADH and FAD were isolated from the intracellular autofluorescence using wavelength- and time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. We demonstrated that the wavelength- and time-resolved intracellular autofluorescence can be used to monitor the cellular metabolic pathways and differentiate the normal cells from the cancer cells.

© 2007 SPIE