Oxygen monitoring has been a topic of exhaustive study given its central role in the biochemistry of life. The ability to quantify the physiological distribution and real-time dynamics of oxygen from sub-cellular to macroscopic levels is required to fully understand the mechanisms associated with both normal physiology and disease states. This Review will present the most significant recent advances in the development of oxygen-sensing materials and techniques, including polarographic, nuclear medicine, magnetic resonance, and optical approaches, that can be applied specifically for the real-time monitoring of oxygen dynamics in cellular and tissue environments. As some of the most exciting recent advances in synthetic methods and biomedical applications have been in the field of optical oxygen sensors, a major focus will be on the development of these toolkits.
Keywords: hypoxia; molecular imaging; oxygen sensing; phosphorescence quenching; tissue oxygenation.
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