Classification of conformations of fibronectin fibrils by backscattering polarization imaging

Recently, backscattering polarization images have been used to explore the microstructures of biological tissues. A proposed study is presented for classifying different samples including a set of 7.4 pH Phosphate-buffered saline (PBS), plasma fibronectin (FN), fibronectin fibril assembly at 0.25 ml/h (FFN 25), and fibronectin fibril assembly at 0.48 ml/h (FFN 48) based on the Mueller matrix backscattering images. The research showed that the diagonal components values m22, m33, and m44 of PBS are considerably higher than those of the fibrillated fibronectin samples (i.e. FN, FFN 25 and FFN 48). In other words, PBS samples are more isotropic than the others whereas FFN 25 and FFN 48 are anisotropic. Furthermore, the frequency distribution histograms (FDHs) of all Mueller matrix elements are evaluated for yielding critical explicit structural information in the form of distinct values that may be used to distinguish four samples. The results also indicated that FFN 48 has the most noticeable depolarization properties. As a consequence, this approach has shown to be an effective method of assessing microstructural research.