Impulsive stimulated Brillouin spectroscopy for non-invasive microfluidic-based viscoelastic measurements in vitro

Dysfunctions in the endothelial cell lining of the vascular endothelium are linked with human pathogenesis of atherosclerosis, venous thrombosis, and several human viral infections. These diseases typically originate from abnormalities resulting from poor structural integrity of the tunica intima of the vascular endothelium. In this report, impulsive stimulated Brillouin scattering spectroscopy was used to assess viscoelastic properties of cells in a microfluidic chip which was designed to mimic the vascular endothelium tunica intima. Brillouin spectroscopy method enabled non-invasive data acquisition of viscoelastic measurements to understand the role of collagen type I on the anchoring of endothelial cells to the extracellular matrix.