Abstract
A study demonstrating how ultrafast laser radiation stimulates osteoblasts is presented. The study employed a custom made optical system that allowed for simultaneous confocal cell imaging and targeted femtosecond pulse laser irradiation. When femtosecond laser light was focused onto a single cell, a rise in intracellular Ca2+ levels was observed followed by contraction of the targeted cell. This contraction caused deformation of neighbouring cells leading to a heterogeneous strain field throughout the monolayer. Quantification of the strain fields in the monolayer using digital image correlation revealed local strains much higher than threshold values typically reported to stimulate extracellular bone matrix production in vitro. This use of point targeting with femtosecond pulse lasers could provide a new method for stimulating cell activity in orthopaedic tissue engineering.
Highlights
In recent years the effect of laser radiation on cells has become the topic of much research
This study shows that focused ultrafast laser radiation can stimulate murine MC3T3-E1 (3T3) osteoblast-like cells
Femtosecond irradiation of cells loaded with fluo-3 AM causes a transient rise in intracellular Ca2+ levels, which is accompanied by contraction of the irradiated cell
Summary
In recent years the effect of laser radiation on cells has become the topic of much research. It has been demonstrated that a focused period of femtosecond pulses can be used for tissue dissection [6], cell microinjection [7, 8], and cell transfection [9]. One of the areas in which stimulation of cells with femtosecond laser radiation might find extended applications is orthopaedic tissue engineering. Tissue engineering aims to create biologically functional tissue substitutes. This is done by seeding cells on a biocompatible scaffold and cultivating within a bioreactor. It is widely recognised that successful tissue engineering requires coordinate biochemical stimulus of the cell, and physical stimulus of the cell
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