Vibrational Analysis of Lung Tumor Cell Lines: Implementation of an Invasiveness Scale Based on the Cell Infrared Signatures.

Assessing the tumor invasiveness is a paramount diagnostic step to improve the patients care. Infrared spectroscopy access the chemical composition of samples; and in combination with statistical multivariate processing, presents the capacity to highlight subtle molecular alterations associated with malignancy development. Our investigation demonstrated that infrared signatures of cell lines presenting various invasiveness phenotypes contain discriminant spectral features, which are useful informative signals to implement an objective invasiveness scale. This last development reflects the interest of vibrational approach as a candidate biophotonic label-free technique, usable in routine clinics, to characterize quantitatively tumor aggressiveness. In addition, the methodology can reveal the heterogeneity of cancer cells, opening the way to further researches in cancer science.

In vivo confocal Raman microspectroscopy of the human skin: highlighting of spectral markers associated to aging via a research of correlation between Raman and biometric mechanical measurements.

Skin plays a protective role against the loss of water and external aggression, including mechanical stresses. These crucial functions are ensured by different cutaneous layers, particularly the stratum corneum (SC). During aging, the human skin reveals some apparent modifications of functionalities such as a loss of elasticity. Our investigations aimed at demonstrating that Raman microspectroscopy, as a label-free technique with a high molecular specificity, is efficient to assess in vivo the molecular composition of the skin and the alterations underwent during aging. Our approach was based on a search for correlation between Raman data collected on healthy female volunteers of different ages (from 21 to 70 years old) by means of a remote confocal Raman and skin firmness measurements used as a reference method. Raman and biometric data were then submitted to a partial least square (PLS)-based data processing. Our experiments demonstrated the potential of Raman microspectroscopy to provide an objective in vivo assessment of the skin "biological age" that can be very different from the "chronological age" of the person. In addition, Raman features sensitive to the elasticity and the fatigability of the SC were highlighted. Thereafter, calibration transfer functions were constructed to show the possibility to compare the results obtained during two distinct measurement campaigns conducted with two Raman probes of the same conception. This approach could lead to several interesting prospects, in particular by objectifying the effects of dermocosmetic products on the superficial layers of the skin and by accessing some underlying molecular mechanisms.

Identification of Neoadjuvant Chemotherapy Response in Muscle-Invasive Bladder Cancer by Fourier-Transform Infrared Micro-Imaging.

BACKGROUND: Neoadjuvant chemotherapy (NAC) improves survival in responder patients. However, for non-responders, the treatment represents an ineffective exposure to chemotherapy and its potential adverse events. Predicting the response to treatment is a major issue in the therapeutic management of patients, particularly for patients with muscle-invasive bladder cancer. METHODS: Tissue samples of trans-urethral resection of bladder tumor collected at the diagnosis time, were analyzed by mid-infrared imaging. A sequence of spectral data processing was implemented for automatic recognition of informative pixels and scoring each pixel according to a continuous scale (from 0 to 10) associated with the response to NAC. The ground truth status of the responder or non-responder was based on histopathological examination of the samples. RESULTS: Although the TMA spots of tumors appeared histologically homogeneous, the infrared approach highlighted spectral heterogeneity. Both the quantification of this heterogeneity and the scoring of the NAC response at the pixel level were used to construct sensitivity and specificity maps from which decision criteria can be extracted to classify cancerous samples. CONCLUSIONS: This proof-of-concept appears as the first to evaluate the potential of the mid-infrared approach for the prediction of response to neoadjuvant chemotherapy in MIBC tissues.

New insights into spectral histopathology: infrared-based scoring of tumour aggressiveness of squamous cell lung carcinomas.

Spectral histopathology, based on infrared interrogation of tissue sections, proved a promising tool for helping pathologists in characterizing histological structures in a quantitative and automatic manner. In cancer diagnosis, the use of chemometric methods permits establishing numerical models able to detect cancer cells and to characterize their tissular environment. In this study, we focused on exploiting multivariate infrared data to score the tumour aggressiveness in preneoplastic lesions and squamous cell lung carcinomas. These lesions present a wide range of aggressive phenotypes; it is also possible to encounter cases with various degrees of aggressiveness within the same lesion. Implementing an infrared-based approach for a more precise histological determination of the tumour aggressiveness should arouse interest among pathologists with direct benefits for patient care. In this study, the methodology was developed from a set of samples including all degrees of tumour aggressiveness and by constructing a chain of data processing steps for an automated analysis of tissues currently manipulated in routine histopathology.

Biochemical and molecular characterization of a quercetinase from Penicillium olsonii.

Quercetinase (quercetin 2,3-dioxygenase, EC 1.13.11.24) is produced by various filamentous fungi when grown on rutin as the sole carbon and energy source. From a rutin based liquid culture of Penicillium olsonii, we purified a quercetinase with a specific activity of 175U mg(-1). The enzyme is a monomeric glycoprotein of approximately 55 kDa, containing 0.9+/-0.1 copper atoms per protein. Its substrate specificity is restricted to the flavonol family of flavonoids. It is completely inhibited by diethyldithiocarbamate at a concentration of 100 nM and 1H-2-benzyl-3-hydroxy-4-oxoquinolin is a competitive inhibitor with a K(I) of 4 microM. The cDNA poquer1 was cloned and sequenced. It encodes a 365 amino acids long enzyme with a strong sequence identity with the Aspergillus japonicus quercetinase (Q7SIC2). Like the enzyme from A. japonicus, only one of the two cupin domains of the Penicillium olsonii quercetinase is able to bind a metal atom.

Mid-infrared spectral microimaging of inflammatory skin lesions.

Skin is one of the most important organs of the human body because of its characteristics and functions. There are many alterations, either pathological or physiological, that can disturb its functioning. However, at present all methods used to investigate skin diseases, non-invasive or invasive, are based on clinical examinations by physicians. Thus, diagnosis, prognosis and therapeutic management rely on the expertise of the practitioner, the quality of the method and the accessibility of distinctive morphological characteristics of each lesion. To overcome the high sensitivity of these parameters, techniques based on more objective criteria must be explored. Vibrational spectroscopy has become as a key technique for tissue analysis in the biomedical research field. Based on a non-destructive light/matter interaction, this tool provides information about specific molecular structure and composition of the analyzed sample, thus relating to its precise physiopathological state and permitting to distinguish lesional from normal tissues. This label-free optical method can be performed directly on the paraffin-embedded tissue sections without chemical dewaxing. In this study, the potential of the infrared microspectroscopy, combined with data classification methods was demonstrated, to characterize at the tissular level different types of inflammatory skin lesions, and this independently from conventional histopathology.

Cladosporium lebrasiae, a new fungal species isolated from milk bread rolls in France.

The fungal genus Cladosporium (Cladosporiaceae, Dothideomycetes) is composed of a large number of species, which can roughly be divided into three main species complexes: Cladosporium cladosporioides, Cladosporium herbarum, and Cladosporium sphaerospermum. The aim of this study was to characterize strains isolated from contaminated milk bread rolls by phenotypic and genotypic analyses. Using multilocus data from the internal transcribed spacer ribosomal DNA (rDNA), partial translation elongation factor 1-α, actin, and beta-tubulin gene sequences along with Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy and morphological observations, three isolates were identified as a new species in the C. sphaerospermum species complex. This novel species, described here as Cladosporium lebrasiae, is phylogenetically and morphologically distinct from other species in this complex.

Influence of intraspecific variability and abiotic factors on mycotoxin production in Penicillium roqueforti.

Penicillium roqueforti has the ability to produce secondary metabolites, including roquefortine C (ROQC) and mycophenolic acid (MPA). In a previous study, the presence of these mycotoxins, alone or in co-occurrence, has been reported in blue-veined cheese. A high variability of mycotoxin content has also been observed, although the majority of samples exhibited relatively low concentrations. The observed variability raises the question of the factors impacting ROQC and MPA production. In this context, the mycotoxigenic potential of 96 P. roqueforti strains (biotic factor) and the effect of some abiotic factors (pH, temperature, NaCl and O2 contents, and C/N ratio) on mycotoxin production were evaluated. A high intraspecific diversity, established via genotypic (RAPD) and phenotypic (FTIR) approaches, was observed. It was associated with mycotoxigenic potential variability and may thus explain part of the observed variability in mycotoxin content of blue-veined cheese. Moreover, a significant decrease of ROQC and MPA production was observed for conditions (temperature, C/N ratio, O2 and NaCl concentrations) encountered during cheese-making compared with optimal growth conditions. The results also highlighted that there was no significant effect of addition of ROQC amino-acid precursor on the production of both mycotoxins whereas a pH increase from 4.5 to 6.5 slightly reduced MPA but not ROQC production.