Yongjin Sung

Optical Diffraction Tomography for High Resolution Live Cell Imaging

We report the experimental implementation of optical diffraction tomography for quantitative 3D mapping of refractive index in live biological cells. Using a heterodyne Mach-Zehnder interferometer, we record complex field images of light transmitted through a sample with varying directions of illumination. To quantitatively reconstruct the 3D map of complex refractive index in live cells, we apply optical diffraction tomography based on the Rytov approximation. In this way, the effect of diffraction is taken into account in the reconstruction process and diffraction-free high resolution 3D images are obtained throughout the entire sample volume. The quantitative refractive index map can potentially serve as an intrinsic assay to provide the molecular concentrations without the addition of exogenous agents and also to provide a method for studying the light scattering properties of single cells.

Multiple Phases of Chondrocyte Enlargement Underlie Differences in Skeletal Proportions

The wide diversity of skeletal proportions in mammals is evident upon a survey of any natural history museums collections and allows us to distinguish between species even when reduced to their calcified components. Similarly, each individual is comprised of a variety of bones of differing lengths. The largest contribution to the lengthening of a skeletal element, and to the differential elongation of elements, comes from a dramatic increase in the volume of hypertrophic chondrocytes in the growth plate as they undergo terminal differentiation. However, the mechanisms of chondrocyte volume enlargement have remained a mystery. Here we use quantitative phase microscopy to show that mammalian chondrocytes undergo three distinct phases of volume increase, including a phase of massive cell swelling in which the cellular dry mass is significantly diluted. In light of the tight fluid regulatory mechanisms known to control volume in many cell types, this is a remarkable mechanism for increasing cell size and regulating growth rate. It is, however, the duration of the final phase of volume enlargement by proportional dry mass increase at low density that varies most between rapidly and slowly elongating growth plates. Moreover, we find that this third phase is locally regulated through a mechanism dependent on insulin-like growth factor. This study provides a framework for understanding how skeletal size is regulated and for exploring how cells sense, modify and establish a volume set point.

High-speed synthetic aperture microscopy for live cell imaging

We present a high-speed synthetic aperture microscopy for quantitative phase imaging of live biological cells. We measure 361 complex amplitude images of an object with various directions of illumination covering an NA of 0.8 in less than one-thirteenth of a second and then combine the images with a phase-referencing method to create a synthesized phase image. Because of the increased depth selectivity, artifacts from diffraction that are typically present in coherent imaging are significantly suppressed, and lateral resolution of phase imaging is improved. We use the instrument to demonstrate high-quality phase imaging of live cells, both static and dynamic, and thickness measurements of a nanoscale cholesterol helical ribbon.

Biophysics of malarial parasite exit from infected erythrocytes.

Upon infection and development within human erythrocytes, P. falciparum induces alterations to the infected RBC morphology and bio-mechanical properties to eventually rupture the host cells through parasitic and host derived proteases of cysteine and serine families. We used previously reported broad-spectrum inhibitors (E64d, EGTA-AM and chymostatin) to inhibit these proteases and impede rupture to analyze mechanical signatures associated with parasite escape. Treatment of late-stage iRBCs with E64d and EGTA-AM prevented rupture, resulted in no major RBC cytoskeletal reconfiguration but altered schizont morphology followed by dramatic re-distribution of three-dimensional refractive index (3D-RI) within the iRBC. These phenotypes demonstrated several-fold increased iRBC membrane flickering. In contrast, chymostatin treatment showed no 3D-RI changes and caused elevated fluctuations solely within the parasitophorous vacuole. We show that E64d and EGTA-AM supported PV breakdown and the resulting elevated fluctuations followed non-Gaussian pattern that resulted from direct merozoite impingement against the iRBC membrane. Optical trapping experiments highlighted reduced deformability of the iRBC membranes upon rupture-arrest, more specifically in the treatments that facilitated PV breakdown. Taken together, our experiments provide novel mechanistic interpretations on the role of parasitophorous vacuole in maintaining the spherical schizont morphology, the impact of PV breakdown on iRBC membrane fluctuations leading to eventual parasite escape and the evolution of membrane stiffness properties of host cells in which merozoites were irreversibly trapped, recourse to protease inhibitors. These findings provide a comprehensive, previously unavailable, body of information on the combined effects of biochemical and biophysical factors on parasite egress from iRBCs.

Stain-Free Quantification of Chromosomes in Live Cells Using Regularized Tomographic Phase Microscopy

Refractive index imaging is a label-free technique that enables long-term monitoring of the internal structures and molecular composition in living cells with minimal perturbation. Existing tomographic methods for the refractive index imaging lack 3-D resolution and result in artifacts that prevent accurate refractive index quantification. To overcome these limitations without compromising the capability to observe a sample in its most native condition, we have developed a regularized tomographic phase microscope (RTPM) enabling accurate refractive index imaging of organelles inside intact cells. With the enhanced accuracy, we quantify the mass of chromosomes in intact living cells, and differentiate two human colon cancer lines, HT-29 and T84 cells, solely based on the non-aqueous (dry) mass of chromosomes. In addition, we demonstrate chromosomal imaging using a dual-wavelength RTPM, which shows its potential to determine the molecular composition of cellular organelles in live cells.

Size homeostasis in adherent cells studied by synthetic phase microscopy

Significance Accurate measurement of cell size is critical in studies of cell growth. Optical methods based on interferometry are known to be suitable for attached cells, but the existing techniques were originally designed for thin samples and are not ideal for thick ones, such as mitotic cells. Synthetic phase microscopy (SPM), a new tomographic interferometric method, offers an elegant solution to this problem. This paper demonstrates the ability of SPM to measure the growth of mammalian cells accurately, and it demonstrates a clear requirement for feedback in the growth process. The coupling of the rate of cell growth to the rate of cell division determines cell size, a defining characteristic that is central to cell function and, ultimately, to tissue architecture. The physiology of size homeostasis has fascinated generations of biologists, but the mechanism, challenged by experimental limitations, remains largely unknown. In this paper, we propose a unique optical method that can measure the dry mass of thick live cells as accurately as that for thin cells with high computational efficiency. With this technique, we quantify, with unprecedented accuracy, the asymmetry of division in lymphoblasts and epithelial cells. We can then use the Collins–Richmond model of conservation to compute the relationship between growth rate and cell mass. In attached epithelial cells, we find that due to the asymmetry in cell division and size-dependent growth rate, there is active regulation of cell size. Thus, like nonadherent cells, size homeostasis requires feedback control.

Video-rate tomographic phase microscopy

Tomographic phase microscopy measures the 3-D refractive index distribution of cells and tissues by combining the information from a series of angle-dependent interferometric phase images. In the original device, the frame rate was limited to 0.1 frames per second (fps) by the technique used to acquire phase images, preventing measurements of moving or rapidly changing samples. We describe an improved tomographic phase microscope in which phase images are acquired via a spatial fringe pattern demodulation method, enabling a full tomogram acquisition rate of 30 fps. In addition, in this system the refractive index is calculated by a diffraction tomography algorithm that accounts for the effects of diffraction in the 3-D reconstruction. We use the instrument to quantitatively monitor rapid changes in refractive index within defined subregions of cells due to exposure to acetic acid or changes in medium osmolarity.

Quantitative dispersion microscopy

Refractive index dispersion is an intrinsic optical property and a useful source of contrast in biological imaging studies. In this report, we present the first dispersion phase imaging of living eukaryotic cells. We have developed quantitative dispersion microscopy based on the principle of quantitative phase microscopy. The dual-wavelength quantitative phase microscope makes phase measurements at 310 nm and 400 nm wavelengths to quantify dispersion (refractive index increment ratio) of live cells. The measured dispersion of living HeLa cells is found to be around 1.088, which agrees well with that measured directly for protein solutions using total internal reflection. This technique, together with the dry mass and morphology measurements provided by quantitative phase microscopy, could prove to be a useful tool for distinguishing different types of biomaterials and studying spatial inhomogeneities of biological samples.

Deterministic regularization of three-dimensional optical diffraction tomography

In this paper, we discuss a deterministic regularization algorithm to handle the missing cone problem of three-dimensional optical diffraction tomography (ODT). The missing cone problem arises in most practical applications of ODT and is responsible for elongation of the reconstructed shape and underestimation of the value of the refractive index. By applying positivity and piecewise-smoothness constraints in an iterative reconstruction framework, we effectively suppress the missing cone artifact and recover sharp edges rounded out by the missing cone, and we significantly improve the accuracy of the predictions of the refractive index. We also show the noise-handling capability of our algorithm in the reconstruction process.

Assessing light scattering of intracellular organelles in single intact living cells

This report presents a model-independent method of assessing contributions to the light scattering from individual organelles in single intact cells. We first measure the 3D index map of a living cell, and then modify the map in such a way so as to eliminate contrast due to a particular intracellular organelle. By calculating and comparing the light scattering distributions calculated from the original and modified index maps using the Rytov approximation, we extract the light scattering contribution from the particular organelle of interest. The relative contributions of the nucleus and nucleolus to the scattering of the entire cell are thus determined, and the applicability of the homogeneous spherical model to non-spherical and heterogeneous organelles in forward scattering is evaluated.