All-optical broadband ultrasonography of single cells.

Thomas Dehoux (1) , Maroun Abi Ghanem (1) , Omar El-Farouk Zouani (2) , Jean-Michel Rampnoux (3) , Yannick Guillet (1) , Stefan Dilhaire (3) , Marie-Christine Durrieu (2) , Bertrand Audoin (1)

1 I2M - Institut de Mécanique et d'Ingénierie de Bordeaux
2 CBMN - Chimie et Biologie des Membranes et des Nanoobjets
3 LOMA - Laboratoire Ondes et Matière d'Aquitaine

Cell mechanics play a key role in several fundamental biological processes, such as migration, proliferation, differentiation and tissue morphogenesis. In addition, many diseased conditions of the cell are correlated with altered cell mechanics, as in the case of cancer progression. For this there is much interest in methods that can map mechanical properties with a sub-cell resolution. Here, we demonstrate an inverted pulsed opto-acoustic microscope (iPOM) that operates in the 10 to 100 GHz range. These frequencies allow mapping quantitatively cell structures as thin as 10 nm and resolving the fibrillar details of cells. Using this non-invasive all-optical system, we produce high-resolution images based on mechanical properties as the contrast mechanisms, and we can observe the stiffness and adhesion of single migrating stem cells. The technique should allow transferring the diagnostic and imaging abilities of ultrasonic imaging to the single-cell scale, thus opening new avenues for cell biology and biomaterial sciences.

Mots clés: Biosensors; Cellular Imaging

Domaines: Biophysique [physics.bio-ph]; Optique [physics.optics]

Thomas Dehoux, Maroun Abi Ghanem, Omar El-Farouk Zouani, Jean-Michel Rampnoux, Yannick Guillet, et al.. All-optical broadband ultrasonography of single cells.. Scientific Reports, 2015, 5, pp.8650 (1-5). ⟨10.1038/srep08650⟩. ⟨hal-01140140⟩