The Nanostructure of Implant-Induced Fibrosis
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Fibrosis or the formation of fibrotic tissue is a product of chronic inflammatory reactions induced
by a variety of stimuli and occurs when there is a dysfunction in the wound healing process. This
typically ensues following mechanical trauma, tissue injury, surgical intervention or
implantation. Quantitative analysis of the developing collagen architecture of fibrotic tissue is an
important, but so far almost neglected aspect of wound healing research.
Synchrotron X-ray scattering and diffraction techniques are ideally suited for studying structural
changes in nanostructured biological tissues. The work presented in this thesis demonstrates the
application of a novel technique (microfocus synchrotron scanning Small Angle X-ray Scattering
(SAXS) and Wide Angle X-ray Diffraction (WAXD)) in characterizing the presence of collagenous
tissue in fibrotic tissue formed surrounding subcutaneous implants. The results of a single
(representative) implant type and time point is presented to demonstrate proof-of-principle of
the novel technique. This work provides information, for the first time on fibrotic tissue, the
nanoscale anisotropy in fibril orientation, the length scale of nanofibrils, the extension of the
tropocollagen molecules, and the degree of molecular orientation and crystallinity. These results
are, to the best of my knowledge, the first SAXS-model for fibrotic tissue nanostructure and will
be the foundation on which subsequent work can be based.
It has been shown that, combining microfocus spatial resolution and the quantitative potential
of X-ray scattering and diffraction is a suitable approach for characterizing the hierarchical
structure of fibrotic tissue in the nanometre and micrometre scales simultaneously.
Authors
Singh, Jasminder Kaur SatnamCollections
- Theses [3705]