Volume 10, Issue 6-7 pp. 919-927
Full Article

Investigating fibroblast cells under “safe” and “injurious” blue-light exposure by holographic microscopy

Alejandro Calabuig

Alejandro Calabuig

National Council of Research, Institute of Applied Science & Intelligent Systems (ISASI) ’E. Caianiello', Via Campi Flegrei 34, 80078 Pozzuoli (NA), Italy

Department of Chemical, Materials and Industrial Production Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, P. le Tecchio 80, 80125 Napoli, Italy

Search for more papers by this author
Martina Mugnano

Martina Mugnano

National Council of Research, Institute of Applied Science & Intelligent Systems (ISASI) ’E. Caianiello', Via Campi Flegrei 34, 80078 Pozzuoli (NA), Italy

Department of Chemical, Materials and Industrial Production Engineering, University of Naples Federico II, P. le Tecchio 80, 80125 Napoli, Italy

Search for more papers by this author
Lisa Miccio

Lisa Miccio

National Council of Research, Institute of Applied Science & Intelligent Systems (ISASI) ’E. Caianiello', Via Campi Flegrei 34, 80078 Pozzuoli (NA), Italy

Search for more papers by this author
Simonetta Grilli

Corresponding Author

Simonetta Grilli

National Council of Research, Institute of Applied Science & Intelligent Systems (ISASI) ’E. Caianiello', Via Campi Flegrei 34, 80078 Pozzuoli (NA), Italy

Corresponding author: e-mail: [email protected], Phone: +39 081 867 5305

Search for more papers by this author
Pietro Ferraro

Pietro Ferraro

National Council of Research, Institute of Applied Science & Intelligent Systems (ISASI) ’E. Caianiello', Via Campi Flegrei 34, 80078 Pozzuoli (NA), Italy

Search for more papers by this author
First published: 18 April 2016
Citations: 41

Abstract

The exposure to visible light has been shown to exert various biological effects, such as erythema and retinal degeneration. However, the phototoxicity mechanisms in living cells are still not well understood. Here we report a study on the temporal evolution of cell morphology and volume during blue light exposure. Blue laser irradiation is switched during the operation of a digital holography (DH) microscope between what we call here “safe” and “injurious” exposure (SE & IE). The results reveal a behaviour that is typical of necrotic cells, with early swelling and successive leakage of the intracellular liquids when the laser is set in the “injurious” operation. In the phototoxicity investigation reported here the light dose modulation is performed through the very same laser light source adopted for monitoring the cell's behaviour by digital holographic microscope. We believe the approach may open the route to a deep investigation of light-cell interactions, with information about death pathways and threshold conditions between healthy and damaged cells when subjected to light-exposure.

figure

3D Morphology and quantitative phase information from late stage of necrosis cell death.

The full text of this article hosted at iucr.org is unavailable due to technical difficulties.