|
A great deal of research has been focused on the study of the dynamics of single cells exposed to short duration, (<1µs) high peak power (~1 MV/m) transient electric fields. Currently, most of this research is limited to the use of traditional fluorescence-based microscopy techniques, which introduce exogenous agents to the culture and are only sensitive to a specific molecular target depending on the dye used. Quantitative phase imaging (QPI) is a coherent imaging modality which uses optical pathlength (OPL) as a label-free contrast mechanism, and has proven highly effective for the study of single-cell dynamics. In this work, we demonstrate how QPI can be used to monitor biophysical properties of cells undergoing pulsed electric field (PEF) exposure. We introduce new QPI image processing methods to monitor the cellular dry mass, refractive index, mass density, and water content of cells from a single snapshot. These parameters are tracked following exposure to a microsecond-duration pulse. We hope QPI will continue to be used for the study of electroporation-induced bioeffects.
|
