Brillouin microscopy, what is it really measuring?
Quantitative Methods
2018-11-30 v2 Soft Condensed Matter
Biological Physics
Optics
Abstract
Brillouin microscopy measures compressibility, but is being increasingly used to assess stiffness of cells and tissues. Using hydrogels with tunable properties, we demonstrate that Brillouin microscopy is insensitive to stiffness of hydrated materials, but depends strongly on water content, consistent with a theoretical model of biphasic compressibility. Empirical correlations between Brillouin measurements and stiffness arise due to their mutual dependence on water content, but correlations vanish once hydration is controlled.
Keywords
Cite
@article{arxiv.1711.03312,
title = {Brillouin microscopy, what is it really measuring?},
author = {Pei-Jung Wu and Irina Kabakova and Jeffrey Ruberti and Joseph M. Sherwood and Iain E. Dunlop and Carl Paterson and Peter Török and Darryl R. Overby},
journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:1711.03312},
year = {2018}
}
Comments
Updated version with expanded discussion, additional data and a mathematical model to relate Brillouin measurements to water content