The fluid and elastic nature of nucleated cells: implications from the cellular backscatter response.

In a previous experiment [Baddour et al., J. Acoust. Soc. Am. 117(2), 934-943 (2005)] it was shown that it is possible to deduce the ultrasound backscatter transfer function from single, subresolution cells in vitro, across a broad, continuous range of frequencies. Additional measurements have been performed at high frequencies (10-65 MHz) on cells with different relative nucleus sizes. It was found that for cells with a nucleus to cell volume ratio of 0.50, the backscatter response was better modeled as an elastic sphere. For the cells in which the ratio was 0.33, the backscatter showed good agreement with the theoretical solution for a fluid sphere.