Materials and Methods: Cell culture

In order to study the changes in tissue optical properties caused by smooth muscle cell (SMC) remodeling of an extracellular matrix, we created slab shaped artificial tissue samples. Our cell culture methods are illustrated in Fig. 1 below and summarized as follows:

• Arterial baboon SMCs were isolated
• 4 concentrations of SMC suspensions were incubated with culture medium and Zyderm collagen solution (Inamed):
  • 0 cells / well (control)
  • 50,000 cells / well
  • 100,000 cells / well
  • 200,000 cells / well
• Cells grew in and remodeled the collagen matrix for 1 week
• Slides with collagen matrix alone (ëacellularí) were also imaged by OCT
• Cell-collagen mixtures were mounted on microscope slides and imaged by OCT
• OCT images were processed with our optical property extraction algorithm and distributions of μ_s and g_eff were grouped based on growth properties of cells

Fig. 1: Cell culture methods. A collagen matrix is incubated with smooth muscle cells and mounted on a microscope slide

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