The mechanical properties of biological cells and their surroundings are important determinants of cellular behaviour. In the field of mechanobiology, it has been revealed that mechanical cues from the extracellular environment regulate cell functions, such as cell proliferation and cell migration, that underpin the development of biological organisms. Despite the importance of cell mechanics, it is currently very challenging to image cellular-scale elasticity in three dimensions. Atomic force microscopy is the most commonly used technique but is only capable of measuring elasticity at the cell’s surface. Brillouin microscopy is an emerging technique that enables sub-micrometre resolution in three dimensions, but cannot directly measure Young’s modulus and, furthermore, can provide ambiguous results, as water also causes a Brillouin frequency shift In this seminar, I will present our work in applying compression optical coherence elastography (OCE) to applications in mechanobiology. I will demonstrate the capability to map the micro-scale elasticity of hydrogels io three dimensions and will describe how this work is contributing to the development of engineered tissues in applications in otorhinology and hepatology. I will also describe our work in developing mechano-microscopy: a high–resolution variant of compression OCE in which we use optical coherence microscopy to map intracellular elasticity ln cell-laden hydrogels. This technique provides isotropic spatial resolution of 1 mm to imaging depths of hundreds of micrometres. I will describe how we can identify intracellular features, such as the cell nucleus, based on elasticity and will present validation from corresponding confocal fluorescence microscopy
About the speaker
Associate Professor, School of Engineering, The University of Western Australia Laboratory Head, BRITElab, Harry Perkins Institute of Medical Research
