PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Marica Marrese
AU  - Nelda Antonovaité
AU  - Ben K.A. Nelemans
AU  - Theodoor H. Smit
AU  - Davide Iannuzzi
TI  - Micro-indentation and optical coherence tomography for the mechanical characterization of embryos: Experimental setup and measurements on fixed chicken embryos
AID  - 10.1101/553693
DP  - 2019 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 553693
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/02/18/553693.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2019/02/18/553693.full
AB  - We introduce an experimental technique that combines micro-indentation and optical coherence tomography to map the viscoelastic properties of embryonic tissue and investigate correlations between local mechanical features and tissue morphology.Abstract The investigation of the mechanical properties of embryos is expected to provide valuable information on the phenomenology of morphogenesis. It is thus believed that, by mapping the viscoelastic features of an embryo at different stages of growth, it may be possible to shed light on the role of mechanics in embryonic development. To contribute to this field, we present a new instrument that can determine spatiotemporal distributions of mechanical properties of embryos over a wide area and with unprecedented accuracy. The method relies on combining ferrule-top micro-indentation, which provides local measurements of viscoelasticity, with Optical Coherence Tomography, which can reveal changes in tissue morphology and help the user to localize the indentation locations. To prove the working principle, we have collected viscoelasticity maps of fixed HH11-HH12 chicken embryos. Our study highlights the nonlinear behavior of the tissue and qualitatively shows the correlation between local mechanical properties and tissue morphology for different regions of interest.