Pyridine Nucleotide Fluorescence Measurements with Simultaneous Visualization of the Microcirculation in Skeletal Muscle

Abstract

Spectrophotometric and fluoro-reflectometric observations on different kinds of tissues have received great attention of physiologists over the past thirty years. Their studies were aimed at providing in vivo information about the metabolic events taking place in the tissue. One of these techniques is the in vivo observation of intracellular redox changes by means of pyridine nucleotide fluorescence, which is based on the fact that the light of the 350 nm region elicits fluorescence from only the reduced pyridine nucleotide at around 460 nm. This technique was introduced and developed by Chance, Jobsis, Legallais, Thorell and further improved by Harbig, Dora, Kovach and others 1, 2, 3, 4, 5. These investigators made the fluoro-reflectometric measurements in a 1–2 mm diameter area. This approach gives an average tissue fluorescence change but does not spatially resolve such a change at the microcirculatory level and requires a strong correction for the changes of tissue blood content 4, 5, 6, 12.