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. 2010 Sep-Oct;15(5):056020.
doi: 10.1117/1.3503418.

Heart wall velocimetry and exogenous contrast-based cardiac flow imaging in Drosophila melanogaster using Doppler optical coherence tomography

Michael A Choma  1 , Melissa J Suter, Benjamin J Vakoc, Brett E Bouma, Guillermo J Tearney
Affiliations

Heart wall velocimetry and exogenous contrast-based cardiac flow imaging in Drosophila melanogaster using Doppler optical coherence tomography

Michael A Choma et al. J Biomed Opt. 2010 Sep-Oct.

Abstract

Drosophila melanogaster (fruit fly) is a central organism in biology and is becoming increasingly important in the cardiovascular sciences. Prior work in optical imaging of the D. melanogaster heart has focused on static and dynamic structural anatomy. In the study, it is demonstrated that Doppler optical coherence tomography can quantify dynamic heart wall velocity and hemolymph flow in adult D. melanogaster. Since hemolymph is optically transparent, a novel exogenous contrast technique is demonstrated to increase the backscatter-based intracardiac Doppler flow signal. The results presented here open up new possibilities for functional cardiovascular phenotyping of normal and mutant D. melanogaster.

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Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Schematic of the heart (h) and proximal aorta (ao) in adult D. melanogaster. Direction of hemolymph inflow through ostia (o) and outflow through the aorta (ao) is indicated by the dashed gray arrows. The heart is located in the abdomen, and the aorta originates near the junction of the abdomen and thorax. OCT imaging in this study focused on the conical chamber (cc), the most anterior portion of the heart. An anterograde beat is characterized by posterior-to-anterior contraction of the heart, while a retrograde beat is characterized by anterior-to-posterior contraction of the heart.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Intraluminal Doppler OCT imaging using exogenous scattering contrast agents. Panel (a) is a still frame taken from Video 1 and shows the microinjection technique. Panel (b) is a structural OCT image of the heart during systole a few minutes after injection of contrast agent into the thorax. Panel (c) has the Doppler OCT image superimposed on the structural OCT image. The Doppler angle is estimated to be 110 deg. Also clearly seen in panel (c) is the Doppler signal generated by the ventral wall.
Figure 3
Figure 3
High temporal resolution structural and Doppler OCT imaging (40 frames per second) of dynamic anatomy and heart wall velocity during an anterograde (posterior-to-anterior) heart beat in D. melanogaster. Also note that the lumen during systole generated very little backscatter-related signal, and as a consequence, there is essentially no flow-related Doppler signal.
Figure 4
Figure 4
Dorsal and ventral heart wall velocity (left panel) during systole as measured using M-mode Doppler OCT (lower-right panel). These representative velocity curves were obtained by plotting the maximum (ventral wall) or minimum (dorsal wall) wall velocity at each time point (i.e., M-mode line) from a manual region of interest drawn on each heart wall. Red curves are ventral data, and blue curves are dorsal data. Solid curves represent velocity data, while dashed curves represent displacement (i.e., integrated velocity) data. The upper-right panel shows the equations governing change in chamber diameter measured using structural OCT and calculation of displacement using Doppler velocimetry data. The structural OCT image is shadowed over the Doppler M-mode image. The red∕blue (i.e., positive∕negative Doppler shift) color map used here is distinct from that used in the other figures and has a very limited dynamic range in order to accentuate the sign, as opposed to the magnitude, of the Doppler shift. EDD, end-diastolic diameter; ESD, end-systolic diameter; vv(t), time-varying ventral wall velocity; vD(t), time-varying dorsal wall velocity.
Figure 5
Figure 5
Intracardiac M-mode Doppler flow imaging several minutes after the injection of exogenous contrast material. Panel (a) shows an extended M-mode recording that captures cardiac reversal. Flow related to anterograde beats generated a negative Doppler shift, while flow related to retrograde beats generated a positive Doppler shift. Systole (s) was determined by the presence of a positive Doppler shift on the ventral heart wall. Panel (b) shows the first retrograde systolic event after asystole, while panel (c) shows the midline velocity profile from (b). Both (a) and (b) have a height of 250 μm.
Video 1
Video 1
Injection of exogeneous scattering contrast particles. The first 15 s of the video show microinjection of the particles into the thorax. The last 3 s focus on the heart of the same animal after injection. The heart can be readily identified by red particles that have adhered to its lumen. (Color online only.) (QuickTime, 3.26 MB) .
Video 2
Video 2
Thoracic injection of an absorptive red dye. Immediately after injection, a “blush” of dye can be seen in the heart. (QuickTime, 670 KB) .
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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