A method to analyze the influence of mechanical strain on dermal collagen morphologies.

ABSTRACT: Collagen fibers and their orientation play a major role in the mechanical behavior of soft biological tissue such as skin. Here, we present a proof-of-principle study correlating mechanical properties with collagen fiber network morphologies. A dedicated multiphoton stretching device allows for mechanical deformations in combination with a simultaneous analysis of its collagen fiber network by second harmonic generation imaging (SHG). The recently introduced Fiber Image Network Evaluation (FINE) algorithm is used to obtain detailed information about the morphology with regard to fiber families in collagen network images. To demonstrate the potential of our method, we investigate an isotropic and an anisotropic ex-vivo dorsal pig skin sample under quasi-static cyclic stretching and relaxati

SUBMITTER: Witte M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8027212 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature