A comparative analysis of the collagen architecture in the carotid artery: second harmonic generation versus diffusion tensor imaging

Collagen is the main load-bearing component of the artery. The 3D arrangement of the collagen fibers is crucial to understand the mechanical behavior of such tissues. We compared collagen fiber alignment obtained by second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy with the alignment obtained by diffusion tensor imaging (DTI) throughout the wall of a porcine carotid artery to check the feasibility of using DTI as a fast and non-destructive method instead of SHG. The middle part of the artery was cut into two segments: one for DTI and one for the SHG measurements. The tissue for SHG measurements was cut into 30μm tangential sections. After scanning all sections, they were registered together and the fiber orientation was quantified by an in-house algorithm. The tissue for DTI measurement was embedded in type VII agarose and scanned with an MRI-scanner. Fiber tractography was performed on the DTI images. Both methods showed a layered structure of the wall. The fibers were mainly oriented circumferentially in the outer adventitia and media. DTI revealed the predominant layers of the arterial wall. This study showed the feasibility of using DTI for evaluating the collagen orientation in native artery as a fast and non-destructive method.