Abstract
Integrative multiscale imaging bridges the gap between macroscopic organ structures and microscopic cellular processes, enabling holistic visualization of anatomy and function across scales. Photoacoustic imaging (PAI) leverages melanin’s potent contrast for label-free melanoma detection, yet its potential in lung imaging, challenged by air-tissue acoustic impedance mismatch, remains unexplored for melanoma lung metastases (MLMs). We used hierarchical multiscale PAI, transitioning from whole-body macroscale to localized mesoscale and single-cell-resolution microscale. PAI also guided photoablation interventions in the first and second near-infrared windows, requiring only 10.4 pg intracellular melanin/cell. Bioinformatic analysis of human MLM tissues revealed perturbed signaling pathways compared with normal skin and lung tissues, accounting for dysfunctional melanogenesis to enable label-free PAI with high sensitivity and specificity. Malignant MLM lesions in living mice, resected mouse lungs, and human lungs were delineated with margins closely conforming to histology. The high sensitivity allowed visualization of low-cellularity microsatellite foci down to a few tens of cell clusters, with sufficient penetration in the lungs of mice and Bama minipigs. The multiscale imaging methodology streamlines a theranostic workflow and specifically identifies MLM burden in a progressive, label-free manner, which may aid real-time tumor ablation in the future.
Authors
Wei Xing, Yujia Zhou, Katja Haedicke, Chenyixin Wang, Karla Ximena Vazquez-Prada, Hong Wu, Zhijun Lin, Chrysafis Andreou, Qize Zhang, Ke Shang, Ruoyang Hu, Moritz Kircher, Xingdong Ye, Jan Grimm, Jiang Yang
Figure 8
Evaluation of pulmonary functions by longitudinal WBP and histology after NIR-II photoablation in the healthy and B16-F10 MLM mice.
Copyright © 2026 American Society for Clinical Investigation
ISSN: 0021-9738 (print), 1558-8238 (online)