• BMB Reports
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• v.55 no.6
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• pp.267-274
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• 2022

Molecular imaging is used to improve the disease diagnosis, prognosis, monitoring of treatment in living subjects. Numerous molecular targets have been developed for various cellular and molecular processes in genetic, metabolic, proteomic, and cellular biologic level. Molecular imaging modalities such as Optical Imaging, Magnetic Resonance Imaging (MRI), Positron Emission Tomography (PET), Single Photon Emission Computed Tomography (SPECT), and Computed Tomography (CT) can be used to visualize anatomic, genetic, biochemical, and physiologic changes in vivo. For in vivo cell imaging, certain cells such as cancer cells, immune cells, stem cells could be labeled by direct and indirect labeling methods to monitor cell migration, cell activity, and cell effects in cell-based therapy. In case of cancer, it could be used to investigate biological processes such as cancer metastasis and to analyze the drug treatment process. In addition, transplanted stem cells and immune cells in cell-based therapy could be visualized and tracked to confirm the fate, activity, and function of cells. In conventional molecular imaging, cells can be monitored in vivo in bulk non-invasively with optical imaging, MRI, PET, and SPECT imaging. However, single cell imaging in vivo has been a great challenge due to an extremely high sensitive detection of single cell. Recently, there has been great attention for in vivo single cell imaging due to the development of single cell study. In vivo single imaging could analyze the survival or death, movement direction, and characteristics of a single cell in live subjects. In this article, we reviewed basic principle of in vivo molecular imaging and introduced recent studies for in vivo single cell imaging based on the concept of in vivo molecular imaging.

• Mass Spectrometry Letters
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• v.14 no.4
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• pp.121-140
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• 2023

It is becoming more and more clear that each cell, even those of the same type, has a unique identity. This sophistication and the diversity of cell types in tissue are what are pushing the necessity for spatially distributed omics at the single-cell (SC) level. Single-cell chemical assessment, which also provides considerable insight into biological, clinical, pharmacodynamic, pathological, and toxicity studies, is crucial to the investigation of cellular omics (genomics, metabolomics, etc.). Mass spectrometry (MS) as a tool to image and profile single cells and subcellular organelles facilitates novel technical expertise for biochemical and biomedical research, such as assessing the intracellular distribution of drugs and the biochemical diversity of cellular populations. It has been illustrated that ambient mass spectrometry (AMS) is a valuable tool for the rapid, straightforward, and simple analysis of cellular and sub-cellular constituents and metabolites in their native state. This short review examines the advances in ambient mass spectrometry (AMS) and ambient mass spectrometry imaging (AMSI) on single-cell analysis that have been authored in recent years. The discussion also touches on typical single-cell AMS assessments and implementations.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.39 no.12
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• pp.841-846
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• 2016

Local protein synthesis mediates precise spatio-temporal regulation of gene expression for neuronal functions such as long-term plasticity, axon guidance and regeneration. To reveal the underlying mechanisms of local translation, it is crucial to understand mRNA transport, localization and translation in live neurons. Among various techniques for mRNA analysis, fluorescence microscopy has been widely used as the most direct method to study localization of mRNA. Live-cell imaging of single RNA molecules is particularly advantageous to dissect the highly heterogeneous and dynamic nature of messenger ribonucleoprotein (mRNP) complexes in neurons. Here, we review recent advances in the study of mRNA localization and translation in live neurons using novel techniques for single-RNA imaging.

• Journal of Microbiology and Biotechnology
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• v.19 no.9
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• pp.904-910
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• 2009

The development of effective cellular imaging requires a specific labeling method for targeting, tracking, and monitoring cellular/molecular events in the living organism. For this purpose, we studied the cellular uptake of isocyanide-functionalized silver and gold nanoparticles by surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS). Inside a single mammalian cell, we could monitor the intracellular behavior of such nanoparticles by measuring the SERS spectra. The NC stretching band appeared clearly at ${\sim}2,100cm^{-1}$ in the well-isolated spectral region from many organic constituents between 300 and 1,700 or 2,800 and $3,600cm^{-1}$. The SERS marker band at ${\sim}2,100cm^{-1}$ could be used to judge the location of the isocyanide-functionalized nanoparticles inside the cell without much spectral interference from other cellular constituents. Our results demonstrate that isocyanide-modified silver or gold nanoparticle-based SERS may have high potential for monitoring and imaging the biological processes at the single cell level.

• Journal of Korean Academy of Oral and Maxillofacial Radiology
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• v.29 no.1
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• pp.149-159
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• 1999

Purpose: The purpose of this study was to evaluate cervical lymph node metastasis of oral squamous cell carcinoma patients by MRI film and neural network system. Materials and Methods: The oral squamous cell carcinoma patients(21 patients. 59 lymph nodes) who have visited SNU hospital and been taken by MRI. were included in this study. Neck dissection operations were done and all of the cervical lymph nodes were confirmed with biopsy. In MR images. each lymph node were evaluated by using 6 MR imaging criteria(size. roundness. heterogeneity. rim enhancement. central necrosis, grouping) respectively. Positive predictive value. negative predictive value. and accuracy of each MR imaging criteria were calculated. At neural network system. the layers of neural network system consisted of 10 input layer units. 10 hidden layer units and 1 output layer unit. 6 MR imaging criteria previously described and 4 MR imaging criteria (site I-node level II and submandibular area. site II-other node level. shape I-oval. shape II-bean) were included for input layer units. The training files were made of 39 lymph nodes(24 metastatic lymph nodes. 10 non-metastatic lymph nodes) and the testing files were made of other 20 lymph nodes(10 metastatic lymph nodes. 10 non-metastatic lymph nodes). The neural network system was trained with training files and the output level (metastatic index) of testing files were acquired. Diagnosis was decided according to 4 different standard metastatic index-68. 78. 88. 98 respectively and positive predictive values. negative predictive values and accuracy of each standard metastatic index were calculated. Results: In the diagnosis of using single MR imaging criteria. the rim enhancement criteria had highest positive predictive value (0.95) and the size criteria had highest negative predictive value (0.77). In the diagnosis of using single MR imaging criteria. the highest accurate criteria was heterogeneity (accuracy: 0.81) and the lowest one was central necrosis (accuracy: 0.59). In the diagnosis of using neural network systems. the highest accurate standard metastatic index was 78. and that time. the accuracy was 0.90. Neural network system was more accurate than any other single MR imaging criteria in evaluating cervical lymph node metastasis. Conclusion: Neural network system has been shown to be more useful than any other single MR imaging criteria. In future. Neural network system will be powerful aiding tool in evaluating cervical node metastasis.

• BMB Reports
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• v.55 no.3
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• pp.113-124
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• 2022

Single-cell RNA sequencing (scRNA-seq) has greatly advanced our understanding of cellular heterogeneity by profiling individual cell transcriptomes. However, cell dissociation from the tissue structure causes a loss of spatial information, which hinders the identification of intercellular communication networks and global transcriptional patterns present in the tissue architecture. To overcome this limitation, novel transcriptomic platforms that preserve spatial information have been actively developed. Significant achievements in imaging technologies have enabled in situ targeted transcriptomic profiling in single cells at single-molecule resolution. In addition, technologies based on mRNA capture followed by sequencing have made possible profiling of the genome-wide transcriptome at the 55-100 ㎛ resolution. Unfortunately, neither imaging-based technology nor capture-based method elucidates a complete picture of the spatial transcriptome in a tissue. Therefore, addressing specific biological questions requires balancing experimental throughput and spatial resolution, mandating the efforts to develop computational algorithms that are pivotal to circumvent technology-specific limitations. In this review, we focus on the current state-of-the-art spatially resolved transcriptomic technologies, describe their applications in a variety of biological domains, and explore recent discoveries demonstrating their enormous potential in biomedical research. We further highlight novel integrative computational methodologies with other data modalities that provide a framework to derive biological insight into heterogeneous and complex tissue organization.

• Applied Microscopy
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• v.46 no.3
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• pp.134-139
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• 2016

Detailed structural and molecular imaging of intact organs has incurred academic interest because the associated technique is expected to provide innovative information for biological investigation and pathological diagnosis. The conventional methods for volume imaging include reconstruction of images obtained from serially sectioned tissues. This approach requires intense manual work which involves inevitable uncertainty and much time to assemble the whole image of a target organ. Recently, effective tissue clearing techniques including CLARITY and ACT-PRESTO have been reported that enables visualization of molecularly labeled structures within intact organs in three dimensions. The central principle of the methods is transformation of intact tissue into an optically transpicuous and macromolecule permeable state without loss of intrinsic structural integrity. The rapidly evolving protocols enable morphological analysis and molecular labeling of normal and pathological characteristics in large assembled biological systems with single-cell resolution. The deep tissue volume imaging will provide fundamental information about mutual interaction among adjacent structures such as connectivity of neural circuits; meso-connectome and clinically significant structural alterations according to pathologic mechanisms or treatment procedures.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.43 no.7
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• pp.591-599
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• 2020

Complex cell-to-cell communication underlies the basic processes essential for homeostasis in the given tissue architecture. Obtaining quantitative gene-expression of cells in their native context has significantly advanced through single-cell RNA sequencing technologies along with mechanical and enzymatic tissue manipulation. This approach, however, is largely reliant on the physical dissociation of individual cells from the tissue, thus, resulting in a library with unaccounted positional information. To overcome this, positional information can be obtained by integrating imaging and positional barcoding. Collectively, spatial transcriptomics strategies provide tissue architecture-dependent as well as position-dependent cellular functions. This review discusses the current technologies for spatial transcriptomics ranging from the methods combining mechanical dissociation and single-cell RNA sequencing to computational spatial re-mapping.

• Molecules and Cells
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• v.42 no.2
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• pp.104-112
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• 2019

Tracking the fate of individual cells and their progeny through lineage tracing has been widely used to investigate various biological processes including embryonic development, homeostatic tissue turnover, and stem cell function in regeneration and disease. Conventional lineage tracing involves the marking of cells either with dyes or nucleoside analogues or genetic marking with fluorescent and/or colorimetric protein reporters. Both are imaging-based approaches that have played a crucial role in the field of developmental biology as well as adult stem cell biology. However, imaging-based lineage tracing approaches are limited by their scalability and the lack of molecular information underlying fate transitions. Recently, computational biology approaches have been combined with diverse tracing methods to overcome these limitations and so provide high-order scalability and a wealth of molecular information. In this review, we will introduce such novel computational methods, starting from single-cell RNA sequencing-based lineage analysis to DNA barcoding or genetic scar analysis. These novel approaches are complementary to conventional imaging-based approaches and enable us to study the lineage relationships of numerous cell types during vertebrate, and in particular human, development and disease.

• Proceedings of the Korean Vacuum Society Conference
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• 2015.08a
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• pp.51.2-51.2
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• 2015

Understanding interfacial phenomena has been one of the main research issues not only in semiconductors but only in life sciences. I have been trying to meet the atomic scale surface and interface analysis challenges from semiconductor industries and furthermore to extend the application scope to biomedical areas. Optical imaing has been most widely and successfully used for biomedical imaging but complementary ion beam imaging techniques based on mass spectrometry and ion scattering can provide more detailed molecular specific and nanoscale information In this presentation, I will review the 27 years history of medium energy ion scattering (MEIS) development at KRISS and DGIST for nanoanalysis. A electrostatic MEIS system constructed at KRISS after the FOM, Netherland design had been successfully applied for the gate oxide analysis and quantitative surface analysis. Recenlty, we developed time-of-flight (TOF) MEIS system, for the first time in the world. With TOF-MEIS, we reported quantitative compositional profiling with single atomic layer resolution for 0.5~3 nm CdSe/ZnS conjugated QDs and ultra shallow junctions and FINFET's of As implanted Si. With this new TOF-MEIS nano analysis technique, details of nano-structured materials could be measured quantitatively. Progresses in TOF-MEIS analysis in various nano & bio technology will be discussed. For last 10 years, I have been trying to develop multimodal nanobio imaging techniques for cardiovascular and brain tissues. Firstly, in atherosclerotic plaque imaging, using, coherent anti-stokes raman scattering (CARS) and time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) multimodal analysis showed that increased cholesterol palmitate may contribute to the formation of a necrotic core by increasing cell death. Secondly, surface plasmon resonance imaging ellipsometry (SPRIE) was developed for cell biointerface imaging of cell adhesion, migration, and infiltration dynamics for HUVEC, CASMC, and T cells. Thirdly, we developed an ambient mass spectrometric imaging system for live cells and tissues. Preliminary results on mouse brain hippocampus and hypotahlamus will be presented. In conclusions, multimodal optical and mass spectrometric imaging privides overall structural and morphological information with complementary molecular specific information, which can be a useful methodology for biomedical studies. Future challenges in optical and mass spectrometric imaging for new biomedical applications will be discussed.