Regensburg 2013 – scientific programme
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BP: Fachverband Biologische Physik
BP 10: Posters: Imaging
BP 10.8: Poster
Monday, March 11, 2013, 17:30–19:30, Poster B2
Non-Invasive Imaging and Quality Assessment of Artificial Cartilage — •Lena Nolte1, Iwan Schie2, and Thomas Huser1,2 — 1Universität Bielefeld — 2University of California, Davis
More than five million people in Germany are currently suffering from osteoarthritis. Due to the daily stress placed in our joints the cartilage between the bones wears off. Once the cartilage is damaged it cannot recover by itself which leads to little treatment options. New approaches in tissue engineering provide promising results in the development of artificial cartilage that could be transplanted to a patient. Nevertheless, the quality of this artificial cartilage must be assessed in order to prevent further issues for the patient. The challenge, however, is to investigate the cartilage at a microscopic scale without influencing it as otherwise with fluorescence microscopy. Here, we developed a combination of several optical techniques to analyze the cartilage without special preparation or labeling. We demonstrate how cartilage cells (chondrocytes) can be visualized by coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS), and the extracellular matrix (ECM) using Second Harmonic Generation (SHG). Images of a size of up to 1.5 cm x 7.5 cm with a spatial resolution down to 1 μm can be reconstructed. Furthermore, spontaneous Raman scattering can be applied to obtain Raman spectra from specific points of interest. This provides molecular information about the cartilage composition within these specific regions. We believe this novel multiphoton microscopy system is a powerful device which enables us to expose the similarity and differences between natural and artificial cartilage.