TY - JOUR
T1 - Modeling of fibrin gels based on confocal microscopy and light-scattering data
AU - Magatti, Davide
AU - Molteni, Matteo
AU - Cardinali, Barbara
AU - Rocco, Mattia
AU - Ferri, Fabio
PY - 2013/3/5
Y1 - 2013/3/5
N2 - Fibrin gels are biological networks that play a fundamental role in blood coagulation and other patho/physiological processes, such as thrombosis and cancer. Electron and confocal microscopies show a collection of fibers that are relatively monodisperse in diameter, not uniformly distributed, and connected at nodal points with a branching order of ∼3-4. Although in the confocal images the hydrated fibers appear to be quite straight (mass fractal dimension Dm = 1), for the overall system 1m0 between their centers of mass so that they are overlapped by a factor η = ξ/ξ0 and have Dm ∼1.2-1.6. The in silico gels' structure is quantitatively analyzed by its 3D spatial correlation function g3D(r) and corresponding power spectrum I(q) = FFT3D[g3D(r)], from which ρ, d, Dm, η, and ξ0 can be extracted. In particular, ξ0 provides an excellent estimate of the gel mesh size. The in silico gels' I(q) compares quite well with real gels' elastic light-scattering measurements. We then derived an analytical form factor for accurately fitting the scattering data, which allowed us to directly recover the gels' structural parameters.
AB - Fibrin gels are biological networks that play a fundamental role in blood coagulation and other patho/physiological processes, such as thrombosis and cancer. Electron and confocal microscopies show a collection of fibers that are relatively monodisperse in diameter, not uniformly distributed, and connected at nodal points with a branching order of ∼3-4. Although in the confocal images the hydrated fibers appear to be quite straight (mass fractal dimension Dm = 1), for the overall system 1m0 between their centers of mass so that they are overlapped by a factor η = ξ/ξ0 and have Dm ∼1.2-1.6. The in silico gels' structure is quantitatively analyzed by its 3D spatial correlation function g3D(r) and corresponding power spectrum I(q) = FFT3D[g3D(r)], from which ρ, d, Dm, η, and ξ0 can be extracted. In particular, ξ0 provides an excellent estimate of the gel mesh size. The in silico gels' I(q) compares quite well with real gels' elastic light-scattering measurements. We then derived an analytical form factor for accurately fitting the scattering data, which allowed us to directly recover the gels' structural parameters.
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U2 - 10.1016/j.bpj.2013.01.024
DO - 10.1016/j.bpj.2013.01.024
M3 - Article
C2 - 23473498
AN - SCOPUS:84874829586
VL - 104
SP - 1151
EP - 1159
JO - Biophysical Journal
JF - Biophysical Journal
SN - 0006-3495
IS - 5
ER -