Label-free Brillouin endo-microscopy for the quantitative 3D imaging of sub-micrometre biology

La Cavera, Salvatore; Chauhan, Veeren M.; Hardiman, William; Yao, Mengting; Fuentes-Domínguez, Rafael; Setchfield, Kerry; Abayzeed, Sidahmed A.; Pérez-Cota, Fernando; Smith, Richard J.; Clark, Matt

Abstract

This report presents an optical fibre-based endo-microscopic imaging tool that simultaneously measures the topographic profile and 3D viscoelastic properties of biological specimens through the phenomenon of time-resolved Brillouin scattering. This uses the intrinsic viscoelasticity of the specimen as a contrast mechanism without fluorescent tags or photoacoustic contrast mechanisms. We demonstrate 2 µm lateral resolution and 320 nm axial resolution for the 3D imaging of biological cells and Caenorhabditis elegans larvae. This has enabled the first ever 3D stiffness imaging and characterisation of the C. elegans larva cuticle in-situ. A label-free, subcellular resolution, and endoscopic compatible technique that reveals structural biologically-relevant material properties of tissue could pave the way toward in-vivo elasticity-based diagnostics down to the single cell level.

Citation

La Cavera, S., Chauhan, V. M., Hardiman, W., Yao, M., Fuentes-Domínguez, R., Setchfield, K., …Clark, M. (2024). Label-free Brillouin endo-microscopy for the quantitative 3D imaging of sub-micrometre biology. Communications Biology, 7(1), Article 451. https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-024-06126-4

• Journal Article Type: Article
• Acceptance Date: Mar 29, 2024
• Online Publication Date: Apr 15, 2024
• Publication Date: Apr 15, 2024
• Deposit Date: Apr 3, 2024
• Publicly Available Date: Apr 15, 2024
• Journal: Communications Biology
• Electronic ISSN: 2399-3642
• Publisher: Nature Publishing Group
• Peer Reviewed: Peer Reviewed
• Volume: 7
• Issue: 1
• Article Number: 451
• DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s42003-024-06126-4
• Keywords: Endo-microscopy; label-free imaging; picosecond ultrasonics; Brillouin scattering; elastography C ele- gans; cuticle *Salvatore La Cavera III
• Public URL: https://nottingham-repository.worktribe.com/output/33027041
• Publisher URL: https://www.nature.com/articles/s42003-024-06126-4
• Additional Information: Received: 17 July 2023; Accepted: 29 March 2024; First Online: 15 April 2024; : The authors declare no competing interests.