Brillouin spectroscopy and radiography for assessment of viscoelastic and regenerative properties of mammalian bones

Abstract

Biomechanical properties of mammalian bones, such as strength, toughness, and plasticity, are essential for understanding how microscopic-scale mechanical features can link to macroscale bones' strength and fracture resistance. We employ Brillouin light scattering (BLS) microspectroscopy for local assessment of elastic properties of bones under compression and the efficacy of the tissue engineering approach based on heparin-conjugated fibrin (HCF) hydrogels, bone morphogenic proteins, and osteogenic stem cells in the regeneration of the bone tissues. BLS is noninvasive and label-free modality for probing viscoelastic properties of tissues that can give information on structure-function properties of normal and pathological tissues. Results showed that MCS and BPMs are critically important for regeneration of elastic and viscous properties, respectively, HCF gels containing combination of all factors had the best effect with complete defect regeneration at week nine after the implantation of bone grafts and that the bones with fully consolidated fractures have higher values of elastic moduli compared with defective bones.

Multimodal Evaluation of the Spatiotemporal Variations of Periprosthetic Bone Properties

“…The aforementioned experimental results are in agreement with a homogenization model showing a non-linear increase of the Young's modulus as a function of bone tissue mineralization [59,60]. Moreover, wave velocity also increases as a function of bone tissue mineralization, in line with results of previous micro-Brillouin scattering studies [16,40,41,43].…”

“…Micro-Brillouin scattering allows the assessment of the ultrasonic wave velocity of the tested material in the GHz range, without contact and nondestructively [38]. Micro-Brillouin scattering has been used to investigate bone wave velocity, in particular within the femoral head [39] or in a bone defect [40], as well as to assess bone anisotropic properties [41], bone structure and alignment [42], the effect of decalcification [43] and the effects of glycation [44].…”

Mechano-chemistry of human femoral diaphysis revealed by correlative Brillouin–Raman microspectroscopy

“…Moreover, thanks to its implementation on top of a confocal microscope, it can reach a micrometric spatial resolution. Brillouin spectroscopy has been already applied to the cortical bovine bone by Sakamoto et al 8 to evaluate the bone tissue repairing also in correlation with radiography 9 , 10 , in porcine articular cartilage 11 , and in the human head of femur by some of us 12 . Here, we propose a synergic integration of Brillouin and Raman microscospectroscopy (BRaMS) by means of a recently developed experimental set-up 13 , 14 that is able to get a non-invasive complete assessment of bone biomechanics and biochemistry.…”

Nonlinear Brillouin spectroscopy: what makes it a better tool for biological viscoelastic measurements

“…Brillouin spectroscopy, which is an inelastic scattering of light by sound waves in a medium by thermal or electrostrictive excitation [10], is capable of providing such information [11,12] through confocal microscopic imaging [13][14][15]. A growing number of applications reaffirms Brillouin spectroscopy as an emerging tool of biomedical imaging [16][17][18][19][20][21][22][23][24]. Spontaneous Brillouin microscopy remains a method of choice due to the growing availability of highresolution spectrometers.…”