Journal: bioRxiv
Article Title: The Connexin 43 Carboxyl Terminal Mimetic Peptide αCT1 Prompts Differentiation of a Collagen Scar Matrix Resembling Unwounded Skin
doi: 10.1101/2020.07.07.191742
Figure Lengend Snippet: In order to capture the full breadth of the collagen fibers present in the system, we built and installed an Arduino-based 136,137 microscope addition to our Olympus VS120 automated slide scanning scope capable of rotating the microscope condenser and analyzer in unison. The addition on the microscope allowed imaging at multiple consistent polarization angles. The left hand image shows the full addition in place on the Olympus VS120, with inset (a) showing the upper motor-analyzer interface, inset (b) showing the lower motor-condenser interface, and inset (c) showing the user control interface and Arduino controller system. A user interface system allows the microscope user to specify a condenser angle, upon which point step motors actuate gears 3D printed with a MakerBot Replicator 3D printer 138 that interface with the native Olympus VS120 scanning microscope 122 polarization condenser 139 and rotatable analyzer 140 . Slides were serially imaged at six polarization angles - 0°, 15°, 30°, 45°, 60°, & 75° - in order to obtain the full array of collagen fibers present in the sample with some overlap. A MATLAB 123 program was written to combine these six separate images and process them as one sample, using the MatFiber function 141 to tally the fiber angles present in each image.
Article Snippet: Next, we used MatFiber and the Circular Statistics Toolbox , analytical tools developed within Matlab , to calculate metrics of the organization of scar ECM.
Techniques: Microscopy, Imaging, Control