title: Investigation on dynamics of red blood cells through their behavior as biophotonic lenses.
abstract: The possibility to adopt biological matter as photonic optical elements can open scenarios in biophotonics research. Recently, it has been demonstrated that a red blood cell (RBC) can be seen as an optofluidic microlens by showing its imaging capability as well as its focal tunability. Moreover, correlation between an RBC’s morphology and its behavior as a refractive optical element has been established and its exploitation for biomedical diagnostic purposes has been foreseen. In fact, any deviation from the healthy RBC morphology can be seen as additional aberration in the optical wavefront passing through the cell. By this concept, accurate localization of focal spots of RBCs can become very useful in the blood disorders identification. We investigate the three-dimensional positioning of such focal spots over time for samples with two different osmolarity conditions, i.e., when they assume discocyte and spherical shapes, respectively. We also demonstrate that a temporal variation of an RBC’s focal points along the optical axis is correlated to the temporal fluctuations in the RBC’s thickness maps. Furthermore, we show a sort of synchronization of the whole erythrocytes ensemble.
authors.affiliation: National Council of Research-Istituto di Scienze Applicate e Sistemi Intelligenti "E. Caianiello," Via Campi Flegrei 34, 80078 Pozzuoli, Naples, Italy.
authors.forename: Pasquale
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Memmolo
authors.affiliation: National Council of Research-Istituto di Scienze Applicate e Sistemi Intelligenti "E. Caianiello," Via Campi Flegrei 34, 80078 Pozzuoli, Naples, Italy.
authors.forename: Francesco
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Merola
authors.affiliation: National Council of Research-Istituto di Scienze Applicate e Sistemi Intelligenti "E. Caianiello," Via Campi Flegrei 34, 80078 Pozzuoli, Naples, Italy.
authors.forename: Lisa
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Miccio
authors.affiliation: National Council of Research-Istituto di Scienze Applicate e Sistemi Intelligenti "E. Caianiello," Via Campi Flegrei 34, 80078 Pozzuoli, Naples, Italy.
authors.forename: Martina
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Mugnano
authors.affiliation: National Council of Research-Istituto di Scienze Applicate e Sistemi Intelligenti "E. Caianiello," Via Campi Flegrei 34, 80078 Pozzuoli, Naples, Italy.
authors.forename: Pietro
authors.initials: P
authors.lastname: Ferraro
mesh_terms: D058948:Cell Tracking / Q000379:methods*; D004867:Equipment Design; D004912:Erythrocytes / Q000166:cytology*; D006696:Holography / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*; D006801:Humans; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods*; D061848:Optical Imaging / Q000295:instrumentation / Q000379:methods*