RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 Mechanical mapping of spinal cord development and repair in living zebrafish larvae using Brillouin microscopy
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 181560
DO 10.1101/181560
A1 Raimund Schlüβler
A1 Stephanie Möllmert
A1 Shada Abuhattum
A1 Conrad Möckel
A1 Conrad Zimmermann
A1 Jürgen Czarske
A1 Jochen Guck
YR 2017
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2017/08/29/181560.abstract
AB The mechanical properties of biological tissues are increasingly recognized as important in developmental and pathological processes. Most existing mechanical measurement techniques either necessitate destruction of the tissue for access or provide insufficient spatial resolution. Here, we show for the first time a systematic application of confocal Brillouin microscopy to quantitatively map the mechanical properties of spinal cord tissues during biologically relevant processes in a contact-free and non-destructive manner. Living zebrafish larvae were mechanically imaged in all anatomical planes, during development and after spinal cord injury. These experiments revealed that Brillouin microscopy is capable of detecting the mechanical properties of distinct anatomical structures without interfering with the animal’s natural development. The Brillouin shift within the spinal cord increased during development and transiently decreased during the repair processes following spinal cord transection. These results show that the larval zebrafish spinal cord tissue presents mechanical signals for mechanosensitive cells residing in the tissue. The work presented constitutes the first step towards an in vivo assessment of spinal cord tissue mechanics during regeneration, provides a methodical basis to identify key determinants of mechanical tissue properties and allows to test their relative importance in combination with biochemical and genetic factors during developmental and regenerative processes.