Abstract
Purpose :
To investigate the relationship in the retina between the reflectivity profile of cross-sectional optical coherence tomography (OCT) and the fluorescence intensity of mitochondria captured with confocal microscopy.
Methods :
High-resolution OCT images were acquired in vivo from rat and human retina. Histological slides of rat and human retina were stained with mitochondrial enzyme cyclooxygenase 4 (COX4) antibody. The optical intensities of each retinal layer in OCT images and the fluorescence intensities of the equivalent layers labeled with COX4 were measured using Image J software. The relationship between the OCT intensities and the COX4 fluorescence intensities was analyzed using Spearman correlation.
Results :
The fluorescence intensities of COX4 were higher in axodendritic layers (nerve fiber layer, inner and outer plexiform layers) in comparison with cell body layers (ganglion cell layer, inner and outer nuclear layers) in both rat and human retina. The COX4 fluorescence intensities were strongly correlated with the OCT intensities of each retinal layer in the rat (r = 0.886, P = 0.033) and human (r = 0.943, P = 0.017).
Conclusions :
The distribution of mitochondria was well matched with the OCT reflectivity profile in the retina. These findings suggest that the optical properties and content of mitochondria largely account for the light scattering in OCT retinal imaging.
This is an abstract that was submitted for the 2018 ARVO Annual Meeting, held in Honolulu, Hawaii, April 29 - May 3, 2018.