Abstract
Altered metabolism is a hallmark of cancer, both resulting from and driving oncogenesis. The NAD and NADP redox couples play a key role in a large number of the metabolic pathways involved. In their reduced forms, NADH and NADPH, these molecules are intrinsically fluorescent. As the average time for fluorescence to be emitted following excitation by a laser pulse, the fluorescence lifetime, is exquisitely sensitive to changes in the local environment of the fluorophore, imaging the fluorescence lifetime of NADH and NADPH offers the potential for label-free monitoring of metabolic changes inside living tumors. Here, we describe the biological, photophysical, and methodological considerations required to establish fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) of NAD(P)H as a routine method for profiling the metabolism of living cancer cells and tissues.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Koppenol WH, Bounds PL, Dang CV (2011) Otto Warburg’s contributions to current concepts of cancer metabolism. Nat Rev Cancer 11:325
Kim J, Dang CV (2006) Cancer’s molecular sweet tooth and the Warburg effect. Cancer Res 66:8927–8930
Vander Heiden MG, Cantley LC, Thompson CB (2009) Understanding the warburg effect: the metabolic requirements of cell proliferation. Science 324(80):1029–1033
Vander Heiden MG, DeBerardinis RJ (2017) Understanding the intersections between metabolism and cancer biology. Cell 168:657–669
Osellame LD, Blacker TS, Duchen MR (2012) Cellular and molecular mechanisms of mitochondrial function. Best Pract Res Clin Endocrinol Metab 26:711–723
Duchen MR, Szabadkai G (2010) Roles of mitochondria in human disease. Essays Biochem 47:115–137
Gambhir SS (2002) Molecular imaging of cancer with positron emission tomography. Nat Rev Cancer 2:683
Wallace DC (2012) Mitochondria and cancer. Nat Rev Cancer 12:685–698
Weinhouse S (1976) The Warburg hypothesis fifty years later. Zeitschrift für Krebsforsch und Klin Onkol 87:115–126
Fantin VR, St-Pierre J, Leder P (2006) Attenuation of LDH-A expression uncovers a link between glycolysis, mitochondrial physiology, and tumor maintenance. Cancer Cell 9:425–434
Moreno-Sánchez R, RodrÃguez-EnrÃquez S, MarÃn-Hernández A, Saavedra E (2007) Energy metabolism in tumor cells. FEBS J 274:1393–1418
Robertson-Tessi M, Gillies RJ, Gatenby RA, Anderson ARA (2015) Impact of metabolic heterogeneity on tumor growth, invasion, and treatment outcomes. Cancer Res 75:1567–1579
Granger A, Mott R, Emambokus N (2016) Hacking cancer metabolism. Cell Metab 24:643–644
Blacker TS, Duchen MR (2016) Investigating mitochondrial redox state using NADH and NADPH autofluorescence. Free Radic Biol Med 100
Murphy MP (2009) How mitochondria produce reactive oxygen species. Biochem J 417:1–13
Ying W (2008) NAD+/NADH and NADP+/NADPH in cellular functions and cell death: regulation and biological consequences. Antioxid Redox Signal 10:179–206
Nickel AG, von Hardenberg A, Hohl M et al (2015) Reversal of mitochondrial transhydrogenase causes oxidative stress in heart failure. Cell Metab 22:472–484
DeBerardinis RJ, Lum JJ, Hatzivassiliou G, Thompson CB (2008) The biology of cancer: metabolic reprogramming fuels cell growth and proliferation. Cell Metab 7:11–20
Sosa V, Moliné T, Somoza R et al (2013) Oxidative stress and cancer: an overview. Ageing Res Rev 12:376–390
Tomiyama A, Serizawa S, Tachibana K et al (2006) Critical role for mitochondrial oxidative phosphorylation in the activation of tumor suppressors Bax and Bak. J Natl Cancer Inst 98:1462–1473
Kroemer G, Pouyssegur J (2008) Tumor cell metabolism: cancer’s Achilles’ heel. Cancer Cell 13:472–482
Hsu PP, Sabatini DM (2008) Cancer cell metabolism: Warburg and beyond. Cell 134:703–707
Shlomi T, Benyamini T, Gottlieb E et al (2011) Genome-scale metabolic modeling elucidates the role of proliferative adaptation in causing the Warburg effect. PLoS Comput Biol 7:e1002018
Croce CM (2008) Oncogenes and cancer. N Engl J Med 358:502–511
Levine AJ, Puzio-Kuter AM (2010) The control of the metabolic switch in cancers by oncogenes and tumor suppressor genes. Science 330(80):1340–1344
Locasale JW (2013) Serine, glycine and one-carbon units: cancer metabolism in full circle. Nat Rev Cancer 13:572
Maddocks ODK, Berkers CR, Mason SM et al (2013) Serine starvation induces stress and p53-dependent metabolic remodelling in cancer cells. Nature 493:542–546
Dang CV (2010) Rethinking the Warburg effect with Myc micromanaging glutamine metabolism. Cancer Res 70:859–862
Dang L, White DW, Gross S et al (2009) Cancer-associated IDH1 mutations produce 2-hydroxyglutarate. Nature 462:739
De Ruyck JJ, Famerée M, Wouters J et al (2007) Towards the understanding of the absorption spectra of NAD(P)H/NAD(P)+ as a common indicator of dehydrogenase enzymatic activity. Chem Phys Lett 450:119–122
Blacker TS, Marsh RJ, Duchen MR, Bain AJ (2013) Activated barrier crossing dynamics in the non-radiative decay of NADH and NADPH. Chem Phys 422:184–194
Patterson GH, Knobel SM, Arkhammar P et al (2000) Separation of the glucose-stimulated cytoplasmic and mitochondrial NAD(P)H responses in pancreatic islet beta cells. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 97:5203–5207
Mayevsky A, Chance B (2007) Oxidation-reduction states of NADH in vivo: from animals to clinical use. Mitochondrion 7:330–339
Chance B, Cohen P, Jobsis F, Schoener B (1962) Intracellular oxidation-reduction states in vivo. Science 137(80):499–508
Duchen MR, Surin A, Jacobson J (2003) Imaging mitochondrial function in intact cells. Methods Enzymol 361:353–389
Berezin MY, Achilefu S (2010) Fluorescence lifetime measurements and biological imaging. Chem Rev 110:2641–2684
Meijers R, Morris RJ, Adolph HW et al (2001) On the enzymatic activation of NADH. J Biol Chem 276:9316–9321
Blacker TS, Mann ZF, Gale JE et al (2014) Separating NADH and NADPH fluorescence in live cells and tissues using FLIM. Nat Commun 5:3936
Schneckenburger H, Koenig K (1992) Fluorescence decay kinetics and imaging of NAD(P)H and flavins as metabolic indicators. Opt Eng 31:1447–1451
Paul RJ, Schneckenburger H (1996) Oxygen concentration and the oxidation-reduction state of yeast: determination of free/bound NADH and flavins by time-resolved spectroscopy. Naturwissenschaften 83:32–35
Pradhan A, Pal P, Durocher G et al (1995) Steady state and time-resolved fluorescence properties of metastatic and non-metastatic malignant cells from different species. J Photochem Photobiol B Biol 31:101–112
Bird DK, Yan L, Vrotsos KM et al (2005) Metabolic mapping of MCF10A human breast cells via multiphoton fluorescence lifetime imaging of the coenzyme NADH. Cancer Res 65:8766–8773
Skala MC, Riching KM, Bird DK et al (2007) In vivo multiphoton fluorescence lifetime imaging of protein-bound and free nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide in normal and precancerous epithelia. J Biomed Opt 12:24014
McGinty J, Galletly NP, Dunsby C et al (2010) Wide-field fluorescence lifetime imaging of cancer. Biomed Opt Express 1:627–640
Adur J, Pelegati VB, Bianchi M, et al (2013) Multimodal nonlinear optical microscopy used to discriminate human colon cancer. In: Multiphoton microscopy in the biomedical sciences XIII. International Society for Optics and Photonics, p 85881J
Rueck AC, Hauser C, Mosch S, Kalinina S (2014) Spectrally resolved fluorescence lifetime imaging to investigate cell metabolism in malignant and nonmalignant oral mucosa cells. J Biomed Opt 19:96005
Wang Y, Song C, Wang M et al (2016) Rapid, label-free, and highly sensitive detection of cervical cancer with fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy. IEEE J Sel Top Quantum Electron 22:228–234
Awasthi K, Moriya D, Nakabayashi T et al (2016) Sensitive detection of intracellular environment of normal and cancer cells by autofluorescence lifetime imaging. J Photochem Photobiol B Biol 165:256–265
Pastore MN, Studier H, Bonder CS, Roberts MS (2017) Non-invasive metabolic imaging of melanoma progression. Exp Dermatol 26:607–614
Phillips D, Drake RC, O’Connor D V, Christensen RL (1985) Time correlated single-photon counting (TCSPC) using laser excitation
Bain AJ (2015) Multiphoton Processes. In: Photonics. John Wiley & Sons, Inc., Hoboken, NJ, pp 279–320
Moulton PF (1986) Spectroscopic and laser characteristics of Ti:Al2O3. JOSAB 3:125–133
Helmchen F, Denk W (2005) Deep tissue two-photon microscopy. Nat Methods 2:932–940
Schneckenburger H, Wagner M, Weber P et al (2004) Autofluorescence lifetime imaging of cultivated cells using a UV picosecond laser diode. J Fluoresc 14:649–654
Webb RH (1996) Confocal optical microscopy. Reports Prog Phys 59:427
Le Grand Y, Leray A, Guilbert T, Odin C (2008) Non-descanned versus descanned epifluorescence collection in two-photon microscopy: experiments and Monte Carlo simulations. Opt Commun 281:5480–5486
Becker W, Bergmann A, Hink MA et al (2004) Fluorescence lifetime imaging by time-correlated single-photon counting. Microsc Res Tech 63:58–66
Becker W, Su B, Holub O (2011) FLIM and FCS detection in laser-scanning microscopes: increased efficiency by GaAsP hybrid detectors. Microsc Res Tech 74:804–811
Becker W, Bergmann A, Biskup C (2007) Multispectral fluorescence lifetime imaging by TCSPC. Microsc Res Tech 70:403–409
Zipfel WR, Williams RM, Christie R et al (2003) Live tissue intrinsic emission microscopy using multiphoton-excited native fluorescence and second harmonic generation. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 100:7075–7080
Moré JJ (1978) The Levenberg-Marquardt algorithm: implementation and theory. In: Numerical analysis. Springer, New York, pp 105–116
Wahl P (1979) Analysis of fluorescence anisotropy decays by a least square method. Biophys Chem 10:91–104
Moger J, Gribbon P, Sewing A, Winlove CP (2006) The application of fluorescence lifetime readouts in high-throughput screening. J Biomol Screen 11:765–772
Tiede LM, Nichols MG (2006) Photobleaching of reduced nicotinamide adenine dinucleotide and the development of highly fluorescent lesions in rat basophilic leukemia cells during multiphoton microscopy. Photochem Photobiol 82:656–664
Enderlein J, Erdmann R (1997) Fast fitting of multi-exponential decay curves. Opt Commun 134:371–378
Laurence TA, Chromy BA (2010) Efficient maximum likelihood estimator fitting of histograms. Nat Methods 7:338
Turton DA, Reid GD, Beddard GS (2003) Accurate analysis of fluorescence decays from single molecules in photon counting experiments. Anal Chem 75:4182–4187
Maus M, Cotlet M, Hofkens J et al (2001) An experimental comparison of the maximum likelihood estimation and nonlinear least-squares fluorescence lifetime analysis of single molecules. Anal Chem 73:2078–2086
Bajzer Ž, Therneau TM, Sharp JC, Prendergast FG (1991) Maximum likelihood method for the analysis of time-resolved fluorescence decay curves. Eur Biophys J 20:247–262
Warren SC, Margineanu A, Alibhai D et al (2013) Rapid global fitting of large fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy datasets. PLoS One 8:e70687
Livesey AK, Brochon JC (1987) Analyzing the distribution of decay constants in pulse-fluorimetry using the maximum entropy method. Biophys J 52:693–706
Brochon J-C (1994) Maximum entropy method of data analysis in time-resolved spectroscopy. In: Methods in enzymology. Elsevier, Amsterdam, pp 262–311
Rowley MI, Coolen ACC, Vojnovic B, Barber PR (2016) Robust Bayesian fluorescence lifetime estimation, decay model selection and instrument response determination for low-intensity FLIM imaging. PLoS One 11:e0158404
Rowley MI, Barber PR, Coolen ACC, Vojnovic B (2011) Bayesian analysis of fluorescence lifetime imaging data. In: Multiphoton microscopy in the biomedical sciences XI. International Society for Optics and Photonics, p 790325
O’Shea P (2012) Future medicine shaped by an interdisciplinary new biology. Lancet 379:1544–1550
Digman MA, Caiolfa VR, Zamai M, Gratton E (2008) The phasor approach to fluorescence lifetime imaging analysis. Biophys J 94:L14–L16
Plotegher N, Stringari C, Jahid S et al (2015) NADH fluorescence lifetime is an endogenous reporter of α-synuclein aggregation in live cells. FASEB J 29:2484–2494
Stringari C, Cinquin A, Cinquin O et al (2011) Phasor approach to fluorescence lifetime microscopy distinguishes different metabolic states of germ cells in a live tissue. Proc Natl Acad Sci 108:13582–13587
Stringari C, Edwards RA, Pate KT et al (2012) Metabolic trajectory of cellular differentiation in small intestine by Phasor fluorescence lifetime microscopy of NADH. Sci Rep 2
Talbot CB, Patalay R, Munro I et al (2011) Application of ultrafast gold luminescence to measuring the instrument response function for multispectral multiphoton fluorescence lifetime imaging. Opt Express 19:13848–13861
Czochralska B, Lindqvist L (1983) Diphotonic one-electron oxidation of NADH on laser excitation at 353 nm. Chem Phys Lett 101:297–299
Walsh AJ, Cook RS, Sanders ME et al (2014) Quantitative optical imaging of primary tumor organoid metabolism predicts drug response in breast cancer. Cancer Res 74:5184–5194
Kawano H, Nabekawa Y, Suda A et al (2003) Attenuation of photobleaching in two-photon excitation fluorescence from green fluorescent protein with shaped excitation pulses. Biochem Biophys Res Commun 311:592–596
Salthammer T (1992) Numerical simulation of pile-up distorted time-correlated single photon counting (TCSPC) data. J Fluoresc 2:23–27
Tosatto A, Sommaggio R, Kummerow C et al (2016) The mitochondrial calcium uniporter regulates breast cancer progression via HIF-1α. EMBO Mol Med 8:569–585
Baffou G, Rigneault H, Marguet D, Jullien L (2014) A critique of methods for temperature imaging in single cells. Nat Methods 11:899
Cracan V, Titov DV, Shen H et al (2017) A genetically encoded tool for manipulation of NADP+/NADPH in living cells. Nat Chem Biol 13:1088
Guo H-W, Yu J-S, Hsu S-H et al (2015) Correlation of NADH fluorescence lifetime and oxidative phosphorylation metabolism in the osteogenic differentiation of human mesenchymal stem cell. J Biomed Opt 20:17004
Schaefer PM, Hilpert D, Niederschweiberer M et al (2017) Mitochondrial matrix pH as a decisive factor in neurometabolic imaging. Neurophotonics 4:45004
Sun Y, Phipps J, Elson DS et al (2009) Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy: in vivo application to diagnosis of oral carcinoma. Opt Lett 34:2081–2083
De Beule PA, Dunsby C, Galletly NP et al (2007) A hyperspectral fluorescence lifetime probe for skin cancer diagnosis. Rev Sci Instrum 78:123101
Butte PV, Pikul BK, Hever A et al (2005) Diagnosis of meningioma by time-resolved fluorescence spectroscopy. J Biomed Opt 10:64026–64029
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2019 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Blacker, T.S., Sewell, M.D.E., Szabadkai, G., Duchen, M.R. (2019). Metabolic Profiling of Live Cancer Tissues Using NAD(P)H Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging. In: Haznadar, M. (eds) Cancer Metabolism. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1928. Humana Press, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9027-6_19
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9027-6_19
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana Press, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-4939-9026-9
Online ISBN: 978-1-4939-9027-6
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols