Analysis of collagen fiber domain organization by Fourier second harmonic generation microscopy.

We present an automated and systematic two-dimensional discrete Fourier transform (2D-FFT) approach to analyze collagen fiber organization through the use of second harmonic generation (SHG) microscopy. Average orientations of individual domains and Ising-like order parameters introduced to characterize the correlation between orientations of adjacent domains may be used to quantitatively characterize fibrous tissues. Our approach was applied to analyze tissues including rat tail tendon, mouse skin, bovine corneas, and human corneas.