An excitation wavelength switching to enhance dual-color wide-field temporal-focusing multiphoton excitation fluorescence imaging

Dual-color two-photon excitation (TPE)-fluorescence imaging is used in conventional TFMPEM to observe specimens with different fluorophore labels. However, concerns have been raised about the excitation efficiency and selectivity of the fluorophores under fixed-wavelength excitation. This study presents a wavelength-switching approach using a scanning mirror, beam expander, and diffraction grating in the TFMPEM to switch the excitation wavelengths and match the optimal absorption of the fluorophores to acquire dynamic dual-color TPE-fluorescence images. The presented TFMPEM system was demonstrated to have an axial excitation confinement of 2.3–5.0 μm for excitation wavelengths of 730–1000 nm, and was used to visualize three-dimensional images of the vasculature of a mouse brain. The TPE efficiencies of different fluorophores were evaluated through TFMPEM imaging with excitation wavelength scanning to obtain their TPE spectra. Consequently, time-lapsed dual-color TFMPEM imaging was performed on rhodamine 6G (R6G)–poly(lactic-co-glycolic acid) (PLGA) nanoparticles and enhanced-yellow-fluorescent protein (EYFP)-tagged clathrin using excitation wavelengths at the maximum TPEs of R6G and EYFP, respectively. Our results revealed the PLGA-nanoparticle uptake of live cells via long-lived clathrin-coated plaques in clathrin-mediated endocytosis.