Label-free counting of circulating melanoma cells in deep vessels with photoacoustic flow cytometry

Melanoma, developing from melanocytes, is the deadliest type of malignant skin tumors in the world. Due to high light absorption of melanin, rare circulating melanoma cells, as an endogenous marker for metastasis at the early stage, can be quantitatively detected in small superficial vessels of mouse ears by in vivo photoacoustic flow cytometry (PAFC). Before clinical application, the capability of promising PAFC platform should be verified and optimized by mouse vessels, which are similar in size and depth to human vessels. In the current study, compared with optical resolution PAFC (OR-PAFC), we build acoustic resolution PAFC (AR-PAFC) using focused ultrasonic transducer and 1064 nm laser with lower pulse rate, leading to higher detection depth and lower laser power density in mouse models. Besides, based on laser frequency doubling and high absorption coefficient of hemoglobin at 532nm wavelength, the blood vessels can be positioned by low-cost navigation system rather than the expensive system of two coupled lasers or charged coupled device with depth limitation. We confirm that AR-PAFC can be applied to noninvasive label-free counting of circulating melanoma cells in mouse tail veins, and validated by in vitro assays using phantom models, which simulates the scattering and absorption coefficients of living tissue. These results show that AR-PAFC platform has great potential for preoperative diagnosis and postoperative evaluation of melanoma patients.