Figure 1
Experimental design. (a) Schematic of the imaging system for performing elasticity measurements on a cell culture sample (BE: beam expander, US: ultrasound transducer, M: magnification). The green dashed line marks the central plane of the cell culture system imaged using the developed system. (b) Schematic of the developed 3D cell culture system. The cell-matrix gel was loaded into a circular hollow in the center of the agarose structure. (c) A side view of the cell culture system (in the X-Z plane), merged from eight optical projection images. The stiffness of the region delineated by the red rectangle is measured by the imaging system. The investigated region can be separated into two inner and two outer subregions. (d) Ratio of the sizes of the cell-matrix gel before and after the fixation process for each of the three observation time points (M: Matrigel, C: collagen type I).
