An intriguing field of research has recently emerged in which biological cells can be demonstrated to behave as photonics devices, such as optical microlenses. This research highlights yeast cells as promising candidates for engineering biolenses with customizable focal properties. Typically serving as positive biolenses due to their quasi‐spherical shape and positive refractive index (RI) contrast, yeast cells can achieve a negative lensing effect by manipulating their intracellular content, without altering their overall morphology. In fact, it shows that exposure to hypotonic conditions induces the formation of a large, roundish vacuole with lower RI values with respect to the surrounding cytoplasm, thus altering the cell's optical properties. This behavior is investigated by using 3D RI tomograms obtained through a holo‐tomographic phase imaging flow cytometry system, demonstrating that the anisotropic nature of yeast cells results in focal properties dependent on their specific orientations in respect to the incident light. Furthermore, Zemax OpticStudio is utilized to perform comprehensive assessments for optical design analysis of the obtained cell biolenses. The methods described here and the related results represent a pioneering investigation of biological cells’ metamorphoses via intracellular content manipulation for biolens applications.

中文翻译：

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通过重塑细胞内液泡的生物工程酵母细胞生物镜头

最近出现了一个有趣的研究领域，其中生物细胞可以被证明具有光子器件的作用，例如光学微透镜。这项研究强调酵母细胞是具有可定制焦点特性的工程生物透镜的有希望的候选者。由于其准球形形状和正折射率（RI）对比度，酵母细胞通常用作正生物透镜，酵母细胞可以通过操纵其细胞内内容物来实现负透镜效应，而不改变其整体形态。事实上，它表明暴露在低渗条件下会诱导形成一个大的圆形液泡，其 RI 值相对于周围的细胞质较低，从而改变细胞的光学特性。通过使用通过全息断层相位成像流式细胞术系统获得的 3D RI 断层图来研究这种行为，证明酵母细胞的各向异性性质导致焦点特性依赖于它们相对于入射光的特定方向。此外，利用 Zemax OpticStudio 对获得的细胞生物透镜的光学设计分析进行全面评估。这里描述的方法和相关结果代表了通过生物透镜应用的细胞内内容物操纵对生物细胞变形的开创性研究。