Defocusing improves microscopic analysis of red blood cells
Gary Boas
Several years ago, Oscar N. Mesquita, a researcher with the Federal University of Minas
Gerais in Belo Horizonte, Brazil, was measuring the movement of macrophages. At
one point, he looked into the microscope before focusing and noticed that some of
the otherwise transparent parts of the macrophages were visible. Not knowing exactly
what he was seeing, he searched the optical theory literature for some reference
to “defocused microscope.” Unfortunately, he found that — although
it was a known phenomenon — the problem had not been solved.
Mesquita and his colleagues at the university
set out to solve it themselves. As reported in a 2003 issue of
Physical Review
E, they concluded that the image of an otherwise transparent object that they
observed in a defocused microscope was, in fact, that of the local curvature of
the object — and that the curvature acts as a small lens that converges or
diverges light, yielding dark or light contrast images.
A defocusing microscopy technique
provides images of transparent objects based on their local curvature. Shown here
are images of a red blood cell when the focal plane position is below (top), in
the center of (center) and above the cell (bottom). Note the contrast inversion
below and above the cell.
This “defocusing microscopy”
technique is easier to use than the typical methods employed to image transparent
(or phase) objects, they stated. And, because it provides quantitative information
about the shape and fluctuations of transparent objects with curvature, it is well-suited
to imaging and characterizing biological samples.
Not everyone agreed, though. A reporter
writing about the study for
Physical Review Focus interviewed several investigators
who were not involved with the study, including Erich Sackmann of the Technical
University of Munich in Germany. “He was very skeptical about our technique,”
Mesquita recalled, “saying that [it] was a low-resolution technique and that
we could not obtain … the bending modulus of red blood cell membranes.”
The researchers took up the challenge
and began studying red blood cells, to demonstrate that the defocusing technique
could provide reliable information about the cells’ optical and mechanical
properties.
They used a Nikon inverted microscope
outfitted with a 1003, 1.4-NA objective, and a CCD camera made by Dage-MTI of Michigan
City Inc. in Indiana to capture images of the cells. Because defocusing must be
tightly controlled, they coupled a piezoelectric transducer translator to the microscope’s
stage, enabling control of the Z-motion.
The scientists described their work
in the March 27 issue of
Applied Physics Letters, reporting results that
were “far better than we anticipated,” Mesquita said. They showed that
they could, in a single run, obtain the refractive index, shape profile and bending
modulus of red blood cells.
Therefore, they demonstrated that the
technique can be applied to acquire quantitative information about the shape and
optical and mechanical properties of red blood cells. Because some hemolytic disorders
can alter these properties, it might even serve as a diagnostic tool. Beyond this,
Mesquita said, “we solved the standing problem of interpreting and understanding
red blood cell images obtained with a standard light microscope operating in bright
field.”
The scientists plan to continue studying
red blood cells with this technique, exploring the phase transitions that induce
shape changes in the cells by investigating alterations in the optical and mechanical
properties that are induced by changes in the concentration of the medium. In addition,
they will work with biologists to determine how these properties change when the
cells are infected by various malaria parasites.
Applied Physics Letters, March 27, 2006, 133901.
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