Why the study?
Four-dimensional imaging is needed to investigate developmental cardiac mechanics and the contribution of biomechanical forces to cardiac morphogenesis with high temporal and spatial resolution.
A novel hybrid imaging technique combining LSFM and LFM enables high-resolution 4D visualization of myocardial biomechanics and intracardiac flow dynamics in developing zebrafish embryos.
Biomechanical forces intimately contribute to cardiac morphogenesis. However, 4-D (3-D space + time) imaging is needed to investigate the developmental cardiac mechanics with high temporal and spatial resolution. We hereby integrated light-sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM) with light-field microscopy (LFM), to simultaneously visualize myocardial contractility and intracardiac blood flow in three dimensions at 200 volumes per second (vps). LSFM allows for reconstruction of the myocardial contraction in zebrafish embryo; and LFM enables simultaneous tracking of the blood cells entering and leaving the contracting heart. We herein established particle tracking velocimetry to interrogate the trajectories of intracardiac blood cells, and we demonstrated deformable image registration to reveal a decrease in the myocardial contractility from atrioventricular (AV) canal to the outflow tract (OFT). We imaged myocardium undergoing torsional contraction and blood flow undergoing regurgitation. Taken together, the integration of light-field and light-sheet microscopy, followed by an image-based analysis pipeline, provides the biomechanical insights into coupling myocardial kinetics with rotational contraction along with intracardiac flow dynamics during development.
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Wang et al. (2020) studied this question.
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