Changes of collagen ultrastructure in breast cancer tissue determined by second-harmonic generation double Stokes-Mueller polarimetric microscopy

Abstract

Second-harmonic generation (SHG) double Stokes-Mueller polarimetric microscopy is applied to study the alteration of collagen ultrastructure in a tissue microarray containing three pathological human breast cancer types with differently overexpressed estrogen receptor (ER), progesterone receptor (PgR), and human epidermal growth factor receptor 2 (HER2). Kleinman symmetry is experimentally validated in breast tissue for 1028 nm laser wavelength and it has been shown that measurements with only linearly polarized incoming and outgoing states can determine molecular nonlinear susceptibility tensor component ratio, average in-plane orientation of collagen fibers and degree of linear polarization of SHG. Increase in the susceptibility ratio for ER, PgR, HER2 positive cases, reveals ultrastructural changes in the collagen fibers while the susceptibility ratio increase and decrease in degree of linear polarization for ER and PgR positive cases indicate alteration of the ultrastructure and increased disorder of the collagen fibers within each focal volume. The study demonstrates a potential use of polarimetric SHG microscopy for collagen characterization and cancer diagnostics. Keely, "Aligned collagen is a prognostic signature for survival in human breast carcinoma," Am. J. Pathol. 178(3),

Quantitatively characterizing the microstructural features of breast ductal carcinoma tissues in different progression stages by Mueller matrix microscope

“…Clinically, different stages of breast ductal carcinoma tissues have different proportions and distribution behaviors of fibrous structures in and around the breast catheters [10,28,29]. In this work, the samples are unstained, dewaxed sections of human breast ductal carcinoma tissue slices at different stages provided by Shenzhen Sixth People's (Nanshan) Hospital.…”

“…Recently, more and more optical techniques have been applied to breast carcinoma tissues in order to extract possible indicators for characteristic pathological structural features. For instance, some researches have demonstrated that second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy can help to determine the changes of collagen ultrastructure in different types of breast cancer tissues [10].…”

Collagen chirality and three‐dimensional orientation studied with polarimetric second‐harmonic generation microscopy

“…The ratio of the susceptibility tensor elements, including , was extracted for each pixel of the image. In addition, the average fibril orientation in the image plane within each pixel and the degree of linear polarization was deduced .…”

Generalized Stokes vector for three photon process

“…SHG is studied recently using Double Stokes-Double Mueller Matrix formalism by di®erent groups. [40][41][42][43][44][45][46][47][48][49] Samim et al 40 theoretically obtained the Double Mueller matrix for cylindrically symmetric materials often found in biological structures. Double Stokes-Mueller Polarimetry (DSMP) experiments carried out on collagen of rat tail tendon is e®ective in cancer diagnosis.…”

“…45 Changes in ultrastructural features of collagen in breast cancer tissue and thyroid carcinoma tissue are studied using DSMP. 47,48 A generalized form of Stokes-Mueller formalism based on classical description of electric¯eld leads to a generalized relation connecting any order of optical nonlinear susceptibility with its corresponding Mueller matrix elements. 40,49 The Stokes-Mueller polarimetry for a nonlinear optical process involving three photons is analysed using particle property of light 50 and later it is done using classical wave property of light.…”