An investigation of thermally induced collagen structural transitions by second harmonic generation microscopy

Abstract

In this work, the thermal disruption of type I collagen is investigated using second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy. We investigated the effects of second harmonic generation images and intensity of rat tail tendon in the temperature range from 25 to 60/spl deg/C. We found a structural transition at 57/spl deg/C where a drop in second harmonic intensity is correlated to a disorganization of the collagen fibers. Our results suggest that SHG microscopy is an effective technique to monitor thermally induced collagen structural changes for biomedical applications.