Time-lapse scanning surface plasmon microscopy of living adherent cells with a radially polarized beam

Lotfi Berguiga (1) , Laura Streppa (2) , Elise Boyer-Provera (2) , Cristina Martinez-Torres (2) , Laurent Schaeffer (3) , Juan Elezgaray (4) , Alain Arneodo (5, 2) , Françoise Argoul (2, 5)

1 Laboratoire Joliot Curie
2 Phys-ENS - Laboratoire de Physique de l'ENS Lyon
3 LBMC - Laboratoire de Biologie Moléculaire de la Cellule
4 CBMN - Chimie et Biologie des Membranes et des Nanoobjets
5 LOMA - Laboratoire Ondes et Matière d'Aquitaine

We report on a fibered high-resolution scanning surface plasmon microscope for long term imaging of living adherent cells. The coupling of a high numerical aperture objective lens and a fibered heterodyne interferometer enhances both the sensitivity and the long term stability of this microscope, allowing for time-lapse recording over several days. The diffraction limit is reached with a radially polarized illumination beam. Adherence and motility of living C2C12 myoblast cells are followed for 50 h, revealing that the dynamics of these cells change after 10 h. This plasmon enhanced evanescent wave microscopy is particularly suited for investigating cell adhesion, since it can not only be performed without staining of the sample but it can also capture in real time the exchange of extracellular matrix elements between the substrate and the cells.

Mots clés: Surface plasmons; Scanning microscopy; Medical and biological imaging; Interferometry; Fiber optics; Noise in imaging systems

Domaines: Optique [physics.optics]

Lotfi Berguiga, Laura Streppa, Elise Boyer-Provera, Cristina Martinez-Torres, Laurent Schaeffer, et al.. Time-lapse scanning surface plasmon microscopy of living adherent cells with a radially polarized beam. Applied optics, 2016, 55 (6), pp.1216-1227. ⟨10.1364/AO.55.001216.v001⟩. ⟨hal-01279128⟩