Spin Angular Momentum in Digital Histo-Biophotonics

Session

Stream 5: Label Free Imaging

Authors

Prof. Igor Meglinski (1), Dr Mariia Borovkova (3), Dr Victor Dremin (1), Dr Gennadii Piavchenko (2, 4), Prof. Sergey Kuznetsov (2), Dr Alexander Bykov (3)

Affiliations

1. Aston University
2. First Moscow State Medical University
3. University of Oulu
4. V.A. Negovsky Scientific Research Institute of General Reanimatology, Federal Research and Clinical Center of Intensive Care Medicine and Rehabilitology

Keywords

polarized light, Spin Angular Momentum, digital histo-biophotonics, 

Abstract text

Nano- and micro-scale structural and functional abnormalities induced in biological tissues (e.g. cancerous changes associated with an increased nucleus to cytoplasm ratio and an overall increase in the volume density of cells, amyloid plaques as a crucial factor in Alzheimer's disease, membrane bound extracellular vesicles – exosomes, collagen, enzymes, and glycoproteins within extracellular matrix, etc.) impact their optical properties, such as birefringence, chirality, absorption, optical activity, and anisotropy of scattering. These changes greatly impact polarization or Spin Angular Momentum (SAM) of light propagated within the tissue. The polarized light going through biological tissues is scattered multiple number of times and depolarized, and the depolarization rate strongly depends on the size and shape of scattering particles, as well as on the number of scattering events. We use the Poincaré sphere to represent the state of polarization of light scattered within biological tissues [1]. We showed that the phase shift of circularly polarized light backscattered from samples of biological tissue carries important information about the presence of cervical intraepithelial neoplasia, whereas circularly polarized light in the frame of Stokes vector formalism can distinguish the successive grades of cancer [2]. We also demonstrated that while the separate polarimetric parameters on their own do not bring sufficient information for distinguishing the contributions of scattering and birefringence, the resultant locus of Stokes vector on the Poincaré sphere allows to reveal the role of both scattering and birefringence in the overall phase retardation between electric field components of circularly polarized light [3]. Jones-matrix and Stokes-correlometry approaches are utilized, respectively, in diagnostics of polycrystalline films of biological fluids [4,5] and quantitative polarization images of histological sections of optically anisotropic biological tissues with different morphological structures and physiological conditions, including pioneering detection of epileptic and Alzheimer’s tissue malformations [6], such as neurons orientation and β amyloid plaques. We propose point-by-point measurements of the Stokes vector of the diffusely reflected light and the automated segmentation of the obtained images by the k-means cluster analysis of the Stokes vectors of the detected light. To sum up, we introduce a SAM – Poincaré sphere based quantitative microscopic concept that, we believe, will foreshadow the development of a clinically relevant in vivo cytological diagnostic capability that could be totally automated and used stand-alone in real-time to improve the tissue diagnosis, with the potential to revolutionize current practice of histological clinical and pre-clinical tests.

References

1. B. Kunnen, C. Macdonald, A. Doronin, S. Jacques, M. Eccles, and I. Meglinski, “Application of circularly polarized light for non-invasive diagnosis of cancerous tissues and turbid tissue-like scattering media”, Journal of Biophotonics, Vol.8, No.4, pp.317 – 323 (2015)
2. I. Meglinski, C. Macdonald, A. Doronin, and M. Eccles, “Screening cancer aggressiveness by using circularly polarized light”, in Optics in the Life Sciences, OSA Technical Digest (online) (Optical Society of America), paper BM2A.4 (2013)
3. M. Borovkova, A. Popov, A. Bykov, and I. Meglinski, “Role of scattering and birefringence in phase retardation revealed by locus of Stokes vector on Poincare sphere”, Journal of Biomedical Optics, Vol.25, No.5, 057001 (2020)
4. V.A. Ushenko, B.T. Hogan, A. Dubolazov, A.V. Grechina, T.V. Boronikhina, M. Gorsky, A.G. Ushenko, Yu.O. Ushenko, A. Bykov, and I. Meglinski, “Embossed Topographic Depolarisation Maps of Biological Tissues with Different Morphological Structures”, Scientific Reports, Vol.11, 3871 (2021)
5. V. Ushenko, B.T. Hogan, A. Dubolazov, G. Piavchenko, S.L. Kuznetsov, A.G. Ushenko, Yu.O. Ushenko, M. Gorsky, A. Bykov and I. Meglinski, “3D Mueller matrix mapping of layered distributions of depolarisation degree for analysis of prostate adenoma and carcinoma diffuse tissues”, Scientific Reports, Vol.11, 5162 (2021)
6. M. Borovkova, A. Bykov, A. Popov, A. Pierangelo, T. Novikova, J. Pahnke, and I. Meglinski, “Evaluating β-amyloidosis Progression in Alzheimer’s Disease with Mueller Polarimetry”, Biomedical Optics Express, Vol.11, No.8, 4509 – 4519 (2020)