Mechanical Characterization of Calcificaiton in Diseased Coronary Artery with Atomic Force Microscope

Abstract

In this work, the mechanical propertied of calcification in diseased coronary artery was evaluated with atomic force microscope (AFM). The heavily calcified coronary artery was harvest from a cadaver’s heart. The artery slices with thickness of 10 um were prepared with cryosectioning. Staining with Alizarin Red has been performed to highlight the calcification region. Results have shown that the calcified areas have a significant larger stiffness compared with the surrounding plaque and the media layer of a healthy artery. The calcification showed a heterogeneous property with larger deviation in stiffness distribution. The staining process affected the mechanical properties. Results will enhance the mechanical property database in the literature.

Connecting Aortic Stiffness to Vascular Contraction: Does Sex Matter?

“…For each scanned location, 64 (8 × 8 stiffness matrix) force curves were produced, covering an area of 25 m 2 . The Young’s modulus (stiffness) was obtained by fitting the force-displacement curves to the Hertz Model [ 22 , 38 , 39 ], as follows. where, E is the Young’s modulus, v is the Poisson’s ratio, R is the tip radius, and is the indentation depth.…”