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bioRxiv · 10.1101/2020.07.10.197723

Plate reader microrheology

Robert Hawkins·Gregg Duncan
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Abstract

In this work, we report the development of a simplified microrheological method that can be used to rapidly study soft materials. This approach uses fluorescence polarization and a plate reader format to measure the rotational diffusion of nanoparticles within a sample of interest. We show that this measurement is sensitive to viscosity-dependent changes in polymeric soft materials and is correlated with particle tracking microrheology, a previously validated measure of microrheology. Using these fluorescence polarization-based measurements, we describe formalism that enables reasonable estimation of viscosity in polymeric materials after accounting for length-scale dependent effects of the polymer environment on the nanoparticle rotational diffusion. The use of a plate reader format allows this approach to be higher throughput, less technically challenging, and more widely accessible than standard macro- and microrheological methods, making it available to non-experts. This approach has potential applications in academic and industry settings where conventional rheological equipment may not be available, as well as in clinical settings to rapidly characterize human clinical samples.

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Robert Hawkins, Gregg Duncan. 2020-07-10. Plate reader microrheology. https://doi.org/10.1101/2020.07.10.197723

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