Proanthocyanidin trimer gallate modulates lipid deposition and fatty acid desaturation in Caenorhabditis elegans.

The incidence of obesity is rising at an alarming rate. Despite its recognition as an urgent healthcare concern, obesity remains largely an unsolved medical problem. A comprehensive screen for functional dietary phytochemicals identified proanthocyanidins as putative targets to ameliorate obesity. A full-scale purification of oligomeric proanthocyanidins (OPCs) derived from grape seed extract yielded pure OPC dimer, trimer, tetramer, and their gallates (pOPCs). Forward chemical screening conducted in Caenorhabditis elegans suggested that pOPCs reduced the activity of lipase in vitro and triglyceride storage capacity in vivo Proanthocyanidin trimer gallate in particular modified lipid desaturation in C. elegans, revealed by hyperspectral coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering microscopy. Exposure to trimer gallate resulted in the transcriptional down-regulation of nhr-49 (an ortholog of the human peroxisome proliferator-activated receptor-α), and a key regulator of fat metabolism, and 2 downstream genes: fat-5 and acs-2 A combination exposure of 2 or 3 pOPCs (dimer gallate, trimer and/or trimer gallate) suggested the absence of synergistic potential. By using the whole-organism C. elegans coupled with versatile biochemical, biophysical, and genetic tools, we provide an account of the composition and bioactivity of individual OPCs and more generally highlight the potential of traditional Chinese medicine-derived drug leads.-Nie, Y., Littleton, B., Kavanagh, T., Abbate, V., Bansal, S. S., Richards, D., Hylands, P., Sturzenbaum, S. R. Proanthocyanidin trimer gallate modulates lipid deposition and fatty acid desaturation in Caenorhabditis elegans.

Spectral interferometric implementation with passive polarization optics of coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering.

We have developed an interferometric implementation of coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering which enables broadband coherent Raman spectroscopy free from the nonresonant background, with a signal strength proportional to concentration. Spectra encode mode symmetry information into the amplitude response, which can be directly compared to polarized spontaneous Raman spectra. The method requires only passive polarization optics and is suitable for a wide range of laser linewidths and pulse durations. The method's application to Raman spectral imaging is demonstrated.

A method for achieving super-resolved widefield CARS microscopy.

We propose a scheme for achieving widefield coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy images with sub-diffraction-limited resolution. This approach adds structured illumination to the widefield CARS configuration [Applied Physics Letters 84, 816 (2004)]. By capturing a number of images at different phases of the standing wave pattern, an image with up to three times the resolution of the original can be constructed. We develop a theoretical treatment of this system and perform numerical simulations for a typical CARS system, which indicate that resolutions around 120 nm are obtainable with the present scheme. As an imaging system, this method combines the advantages of sub-diffraction-limited resolution, endogenous contrast generation, and a wide field of view.

Anomalous power laws of spectral diffusion in quantum dots: a connection to luminescence intermittency.

We show that the wandering of transition frequencies in colloidal quantum dots does not follow the statistics expected for ordinary diffusive processes. The trajectory of this anomalous spectral diffusion is characterized by a sqrt[t] dependence of the squared deviation. The behavior is reproduced when the electronic states of quantum dots are assumed to interact with environments such as, for example, an ensemble of two-level systems, where the correlation times are distributed according to a power law similar to the one generally attributed to the dot's luminescence intermittency.

Coherent super-resolution microscopy via laterally structured illumination.

Theory describing a super-resolution microscopy experiment using temporally and spatially coherent structured illumination was developed, and used to derive a method for processing experimental data. Numerical simulations were performed to verify that the method can, in principle, produce super-resolved images that are exactly equivalent to an image processed by a system with a much larger aperture (that is, the correct weighting between different regions of the image spectrum is maintained). The process was then demonstrated experimentally, showing a factor of two improvement in resolution over a diffraction-limited, coherently illuminated, microscope.