欧洲分子生物学实验室Robert Prevedel和中国科学院上海光学精密机械研究所Fan Yang共同合作，近期取得重要工作进展。他们研究开发了脉冲受激布里渊显微镜，能够对活体和脆弱的生物样本进行高灵敏度机械成像。相关研究成果2023年10月26日在线发表于《自然—方法学》杂志上。
据介绍，布里渊显微镜是一种新兴的光学弹性成像技术，能够以三维、全光学和非接触的方式评估生物样品的力学性能。典型的弱布里渊散射信号可以通过受激布里渊散射（SBS）过程得到显著增强；然而，当前的实现方式需要高泵功率，这禁止应用于生物样品的光敏或实时成像。
研究人员提出了一种脉冲SBS方案，该方案利用了泵浦-探针相互作用的非线性。在不影响信号电平或光谱精度的情况下，所需的泵浦激光功率可以降低约20倍。研究人员通过亚细胞细节、敏感单细胞、斑马鱼幼虫、小鼠胚胎和成年秀丽隐杆线虫的成像，证明了脉冲SBS方法的低光毒性和高特异性。
此外，这一方案允许随着时间的推移观察类器官和秀丽隐杆线虫胚胎的力学，为机械生物学领域开辟了进一步的可能性。
附：英文原文
Title: Pulsed stimulated Brillouin microscopy enables high-sensitivity mechanical imaging of live and fragile biological specimens
Author: Yang, Fan, Bevilacqua, Carlo, Hambura, Sebastian, Neves, Ana, Gopalan, Anusha, Watanabe, Koki, Govendir, Matt, Bernabeu, Maria, Ellenberg, Jan, Diz-Muoz, Alba, Khler, Simone, Rapti, Georgia, Jechlinger, Martin, Prevedel, Robert
Issue&Volume: 2023-10-26
Abstract: Brillouin microscopy is an emerging optical elastography technique capable of assessing mechanical properties of biological samples in a three-dimensional, all-optical and noncontact fashion. The typically weak Brillouin scattering signal can be substantially enhanced via a stimulated Brillouin scattering (SBS) process; however, current implementations require high pump powers, which prohibit applications to photosensitive or live imaging of biological samples. Here we present a pulsed SBS scheme that takes advantage of the nonlinearity of the pump–probe interaction. In particular, we show that the required pump laser power can be decreased ~20-fold without affecting the signal levels or spectral precision. We demonstrate the low phototoxicity and high specificity of our pulsed SBS approach by imaging, with subcellular detail, sensitive single cells, zebrafish larvae, mouse embryos and adult Caenorhabditis elegans. Furthermore, our method permits observing the mechanics of organoids and C. elegans embryos over time, opening up further possibilities for the field of mechanobiology.
DOI: 10.1038/s41592-023-02054-z
Source: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41592-023-02054-z
Nature Methods：《自然—方法学》，创刊于2004年。隶属于施普林格·自然出版集团，最新IF：47.99
官方网址：https://www.nature.com/nmeth/
投稿链接：https://mts-nmeth.nature.com/cgi-bin/main.plex
本期文章：《自然—方法学》：Online/在线发表
