Application Note | ElastoSens™ Bio
Measuring mechanical properties of pancreas tissue using ElastoSens™ Bio
Introduction
The pancreas is a small but complex organ whose function depends not only on biochemical signaling but also on the physical environment of its tissue. Its mechanical properties—such as stiffness, elasticity, and viscoelasticity—are shaped by the structure of the parenchyma and the extracellular matrix. These features influence how the pancreas responds to physiological stress, adapts during aging, and changes in disease states like chronic inflammation or cancer. By studying them, scientists and clinicians can better understand how a healthy pancreas functions, detect early signs of disease, and design therapies that restore or preserve performance.
Key mechanical properties of pancreas tissue
Stiffness
Stiffness describes how resistant the pancreas is to deformation under force. Non-invasive imaging techniques such as elastography and magnetic resonance elastography (MRE) have shown that pancreatic stiffness increases with age and with pathological remodeling. Stiffness values are particularly relevant in distinguishing healthy tissue from diseased states, as elevated stiffness is a common marker of fibrosis and malignancy.
Elasticity and Compliance
Elasticity reflects the ability of pancreatic tissue to return to its original form after stress, while compliance is its inverse—describing how easily it deforms. In healthy tissue, elasticity allows the pancreas to maintain structural stability despite external pressures from surrounding organs. Reduced compliance and altered elasticity are early indicators of tissue remodeling, especially in the progression from normal tissue to fibrotic or cancerous states.
Viscoelasticity
Pancreatic tissue demonstrates both solid- and fluid-like behavior, making viscoelasticity a central property. This dual response becomes particularly relevant when assessing how the tissue adapts to continuous stress or fluctuating pressures. Advanced testing methods, from rheometry in resected specimens to shear wave propagation in imaging, capture this time-dependent deformation and provide deeper insight into pancreatic tissue health.
Anisotropy
The pancreas, like many soft tissues, is not mechanically uniform in all directions. Its anisotropy means that mechanical responses vary depending on the orientation of applied forces. This heterogeneity, especially marked in pathological states, complicates measurement but also provides important diagnostic cues, as directional stiffness variations often indicate altered extracellular matrix organization.
Relationship between diseases and mechanical properties of pancreas tissue
Chronic Pancreatitis
Chronic pancreatitis is characterized by long-term inflammation and fibrosis, both of which increase tissue stiffness. Elastography studies have shown that stiffening of the parenchyma can serve as a diagnostic indicator, even before late-stage morphological changes appear. These mechanical alterations provide valuable markers for early detection and monitoring of disease progression.
Pancreatic Ductal Adenocarcinoma (PDAC)
PDAC is strongly associated with a profound increase in pancreatic stiffness, caused by a dense fibrotic stroma that can make the tumor several magnitudes stiffer than healthy tissue. This biomechanical change not only aids diagnosis through elastographic imaging but also contributes to poor therapeutic outcomes, as stiffer tissue can impair drug delivery and promote invasive tumor behavior.
Aging Pancreas
Even in the absence of disease, pancreatic stiffness naturally increases with age due to tissue atrophy and fibrotic remodeling. MRE studies have demonstrated that older individuals consistently show higher stiffness values compared to younger ones, underlining the importance of accounting for age-related changes when interpreting pancreatic mechanics
How pancreas tissue mechanics are assessed
In Vivo techniques (Clinics)
In clinical practice, the mechanical properties of the pancreas can be evaluated non-invasively using elastography techniques. Two main approaches are widely described: ultrasound-based elastography and magnetic resonance elastography (MRE). Ultrasound elastography can be performed through transabdominal probes or endoscopic ultrasound, using either strain elastography, which assesses tissue deformation under natural pulsations, or shear wave elastography, which measures the velocity of waves traveling through tissue. These methods provide real-time information on stiffness and are useful in differentiating malignant from benign pancreatic lesions, assessing fibrosis, and monitoring conditions such as chronic pancreatitis. MRE, on the other hand, integrates mechanical vibrations into MRI imaging to generate quantitative maps of pancreatic stiffness. It is reproducible and robust, with stiffness values that increase with age and disease, making it a promising tool for early diagnosis and disease staging. Both ultrasound elastography and MRE offer clinicians valuable, non-invasive windows into pancreatic biomechanics, expanding diagnostic capabilities beyond morphology alone.
Ex Vivo techniques (Research)
In research, a broader set of instruments allows for direct mechanical testing of native pancreatic tissue after resection. Techniques such as atomic force microscopy (AFM) provide nanoscale resolution of elasticity and viscoelasticity, enabling the study of cell–matrix interactions and tissue heterogeneity. At the macroscale, indentation testing, compression and tensile assays, and rheometry are used to quantify stiffness and viscoelastic behavior in both healthy and diseased samples. These methods reveal how pancreatic tissues behave under load and highlight differences between normal, inflamed, and cancerous states. Complementary tools like Brillouin microscopy and computational finite element modeling extend analysis further, either through non-contact optical probing or simulation of tissue responses under physiological stress. Together, these approaches provide researchers with a rich toolkit to investigate the biomechanical landscape of the pancreas, supporting both fundamental science and translational applications.
Case study: Pancreas tissue mechanical characterization with ElastoSens™ Bio
ElastoSens™ Bio: a contactless tool for Ex Vivo tissue testing
In the field of pancreatic biomechanics, the ElastoSens™ Bio
offers a novel approach to ex vivo testing. This instrument continuously and non-destructively measures the viscoelastic properties of pancreatic tissue, ensuring that sample integrity is preserved throughout experiments. Its technology allows for precise characterization of soft biological samples and enables repeated measurements over time under different environmental conditions, thereby extending the insights gained beyond those of traditional mechanical assays.
To demonstrate the capabilities of the ElastoSens™ Bio, we performed an ex vivo study on pancreatic tissue samples. The following section presents the materials and methods employed in this experiment, followed by the results, providing a practical illustration of the instrument’s application.
Material and methods
Porcine pancreas tissue was obtained from Sustainable Swine Resources (SSR). Specimens with an approximate weight of 3.0 g were sectioned and placed in the macro holders for testing. To prevent drying, samples were immersed in phosphate-buffered saline (PBS) overnight at 4 °C prior to testing. Each specimen was then placed in the macro holder of the ElastoSens™ Bio instrument and equilibrated at 37 °C for 1 hour. Excess PBS was gently removed before measurement.
The instrument provided real-time viscoelastic parameters, including the shear storage modulus (G′) and the shear loss modulus (G″). For each condition, results were expressed as mean values obtained from three samples, collected from different regions of the same pancreas (n = 3).
Figure 1. Porcine pancreas prepared and loaded into the ElastoSens™ Bio macro holders for non-destructive viscoelastic characterization. The top panel shows the intact pancreas sample prior to sectioning, and the bottom panel shows representative pancreatic portions placed in the holders for testing.
Results and discussion
The viscoelastic properties of porcine pancreas tissue were evaluated using the ElastoSens™ Bio non-destructive testing system (Figure 2). The shear storage modulus (G′) and shear loss modulus (G″) were measured as 546 ± 13 Pa and 206 ± 16 Pa, respectively (n = 3). These measurements capture the viscoelastic response of pancreas tissue, consistent with its function as a highly hydrated vascularized organ.
For comparison, Nicolle et al. evaluated the viscoelastic behavior of porcine pancreas using a conventional parallel-plate rheometer in the linear oscillatory regime (γ = 1%) and reported G′ values of ~120–180 Pa over 0.1–0.8 Hz (with similarly low G″). These values are lower and the difference is most plausibly due to testing methodology: Nicolle et al. used small punched discs glued between plates and tested only at very low frequencies (<1 Hz). A practical advantage of the ElastoSens™ Bio is its non-destructive testing approach, which allows repeated measurements on the same specimen while maintaining the pancreas’ layered architecture, thereby providing a more integrated representation of the organ’s mechanical response.
Figure 2: Viscoelastic properties of porcine pancreas tissue: shear storage modulus (G′) and shear loss modulus (G’’) obtained with the ElastoSens™ Bio non-destructive testing system (mean ± SD, n=3).
Conclusions and perspectives
The mechanical properties of pancreatic tissue—defined by elasticity, viscoelasticity, and structural anisotropy—are central to understanding its physiological roles in digestion, enzyme secretion, and endocrine regulation. Non-destructive viscoelastic testing with the ElastoSens™ Bio enables reliable quantification of pancreatic mechanics, capturing key parameters such as shear storage modulus (G′) and shear loss modulus (G″). This approach provides precise and reproducible data, offering a strong baseline for both biomedical research and translational gastroenterology studies.
Beyond these findings, the ElastoSens™ Bio offers unique advantages for pancreas and soft tissue research:
- Simple preparation and setup minimize handling while preserving hydration and structural integrity.
- High sensitivity and repeatability ensure consistent measurements across different anatomical regions, capturing local variability.
- Cross-species benchmarking facilitates translational studies by directly comparing pancreatic mechanics in animal models and humans.
- Platform versatility supports testing of diverse soft tissues and biomaterials under identical conditions, making it valuable for developing pancreatic scaffolds, islet-supporting matrices, or engineered tissue constructs.
- Controlled incubation and repeated testing allow continuous monitoring of viscoelastic changes over time, whether due to aging, fibrosis, pharmacological treatment, or pathological conditions such as chronic pancreatitis or cancer.
- Engineered pancreas models also benefit from non-destructive, repeated measurements that reflect the dynamic evolution of bioengineered constructs.
Taken together, these capabilities position the ElastoSens™ Bio as a powerful tool for advancing our understanding of pancreatic biomechanics, supporting comparative physiology, and guiding the development of biomaterials and therapies designed to preserve or restore pancreatic function.
References
MacCurtain, B. M., Quirke, N. P., Thorpe, S. D., & Gallagher, T. K. (2021). Pancreatic ductal adenocarcinoma: relating biomechanics and prognosis. Journal of clinical medicine, 10(12), 2711.
Kolipaka, A., Schroeder, S., Mo, X., Shah, Z., Hart, P. A., & Conwell, D. L. (2017). Magnetic resonance elastography of the pancreas: Measurement reproducibility and relationship with age. Magnetic resonance imaging, 42, 1-7.
Kawada, N., & Tanaka, S. (2016). Elastography for the pancreas: Current status and future perspective. World journal of gastroenterology, 22(14), 3712.
Nicolle, S., Noguer, L., & Palierne, J. F. (2013). Shear mechanical properties of the porcine pancreas: experiment and analytical modelling. Journal of the Mechanical Behavior of Biomedical Materials, 26, 90–97.
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