Title:
Non-invasive imaging of lymphatic remodeling in response to injury through photodynamic therapy

dc.contributor.advisor Dixon, J. Brandon
dc.contributor.author Kuzminich, Yanina
dc.contributor.committeeMember Buckley, Erin M
dc.contributor.committeeMember Gleason, Rudolph L
dc.contributor.department Mechanical Engineering
dc.date.accessioned 2021-01-11T17:10:02Z
dc.date.available 2021-01-11T17:10:02Z
dc.date.created 2020-12
dc.date.issued 2020-10-29
dc.date.submitted December 2020
dc.date.updated 2021-01-11T17:10:02Z
dc.description.abstract The lymphatic system is an essential but often understudied in comparison with its cardiovascular counterpart. Such disparity could often be explained by the lack or complexity of the existing imaging and analysis techniques available for the quantification of lymphatics compared to the ones available for the blood vasculature. An additional challenge is the absence of representative in vivo models that efficiently replicate the lymphatic dysfunction observed in humans. Those factors motivate the continuous investigation of novel models for lymphatic diseases and ways to evaluate the overall function of the lymphatic system. Recently, it has been shown that verteporfin, a photosensitive drug widely used for photodynamic therapy (PDT) to ablate the blood vessels, provides a similar effect on lymphatic vessels. Here, we seek to administer verteporfin and perform PDT of collecting lymphatics in the mouse tail, which is a commonly used location for the study of lymphatic disorders and examine lymphatic remodeling, contractility, and transport in response to the procedure. To quantify the induced changes, the lymphatic function was evaluated using a near-infrared (NIR) imaging system. Additional image processing has been introduced to access the NIR tracer distribution following the lymphatic injury caused by the verteporfin administration. As a result, we are able to increase lymphatic permeability noninvasively at the targeted area. This technique has the potential to be a stand-alone procedure to investigate the lymphatic response to a localized leakage and reactive oxygen species (ROS) and serve as an improvement to existing in vivo models of lymphatic disorders.
dc.description.degree M.S.
dc.format.mimetype application/pdf
dc.identifier.uri http://hdl.handle.net/1853/64125
dc.language.iso en_US
dc.publisher Georgia Institute of Technology
dc.subject Lymphatic vessels
dc.subject Lymphatics
dc.subject Photodynamic therapy
dc.subject PDT
dc.subject Verteporfin
dc.subject Lymphatic ablation
dc.subject Lymphatic leakage
dc.subject Near-infrared imaging, NIR
dc.title Non-invasive imaging of lymphatic remodeling in response to injury through photodynamic therapy
dc.type Text
dc.type.genre Thesis
dspace.entity.type Publication
local.contributor.advisor Dixon, J. Brandon
local.contributor.corporatename George W. Woodruff School of Mechanical Engineering
local.contributor.corporatename College of Engineering
relation.isAdvisorOfPublication 9f14783f-ad69-4a5d-9032-e1d19c3a41ca
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication c01ff908-c25f-439b-bf10-a074ed886bb7
relation.isOrgUnitOfPublication 7c022d60-21d5-497c-b552-95e489a06569
thesis.degree.level Masters
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