Probing glycosaminoglycan spectral signatures in live cells and their conditioned media by Raman microspectroscopy.

Spectroscopic markers characteristic of reference glycosaminoglycan molecules were identified previously based on their vibrational signatures. Infrared spectral signatures of glycosaminoglycans in fixed cells were also recently demonstrated but probing live cells still remains challenging. Raman microspectroscopy is potentially interesting to perform studies under physiological conditions. The aim of the present work was to identify the Raman spectral signatures of GAGs in fixed and live cells and in their conditioned media. Biochemical and Raman analyses were performed on five cell types: chondrocytes, dermal fibroblasts, melanoma (SK-MEL-28), wild type CHO, and glycosaminoglycan-defective mutant CHO-745 cells. The biochemical assay of sulfated GAGs in conditioned media was only possible for chondrocytes, dermal fibroblasts, and wild type CHO due to the detection limit of the test. In contrast, Raman microspectroscopy allowed probing total glycosaminoglycan content in conditioned media, fixed and live cells and the data were analysed by principal component analysis. Our results showed that the Raman technique is sensitive enough to identify spectral markers of glycosaminoglycans that were useful to characterise the conditioned media of the five cell types. The results were confirmed at the single cell level on both live and fixed cells with a good differentiation between the cell types. Furthermore, the principal component loadings revealed prominent glycosaminoglycan-related spectral information. Raman microspectroscopy allows monitoring of the glycosaminoglycan profiles of single live cells and could therefore be developed for cell screening purposes and holds promise for identifying glycosaminoglycan signatures as a marker of cancer progression in tissues.

Biofluid infrared spectro-diagnostics: pre-analytical considerations for clinical applications.

Several proof-of-concept studies on the vibrational spectroscopy of biofluids have demonstrated that the methodology has promising potential as a clinical diagnostic tool. However, these studies also show that there is a lack of a standardised protocol in sample handling and preparation prior to spectroscopic analysis. One of the most important sources of analytical errors is the pre-analytical phase. For the technique to be translated into clinics, it is clear that a very strict protocol needs to be established for such biological samples. This study focuses on some of the aspects of the pre-analytical phase in the development of the high-throughput Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy of some of the most common biofluids such as serum, plasma and bile. Pre-analytical considerations that can impact either the samples (solvents, anti-coagulants, freeze-thaw cycles…) and/or spectroscopic analysis (sample preparation such as drying, deposit methods, volumes, substrates, operators dependence…) and consequently the quality and the reproducibility of spectral data will be discussed in this report.

Implementation of an FTIR spectral library of 486 filamentous fungi strains for rapid identification of molds.

Filamentous fungi may cause food and feed spoilage and produce harmful metabolites to human and animal health such as mycotoxins. Identification of fungi using conventional phenotypic methods is time-consuming and molecular methods are still quite expensive and require specific laboratory skills. In the last two decades, it has been shown that Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy was an efficient tool for microorganism identification. The aims of this study were to use a simple protocol for the identification of filamentous fungi using FTIR spectroscopy coupled with a partial least squares discriminant analysis (PLS-DA), to implement a procedure to validate the obtained results, and to assess the transferability of the method and database. FTIR spectra of 486 strains (43 genera and 140 species) were recorded. An IR spectral database built with 288 strains was used to identify 105 different strains. It was found that 99.17% and 92.3% of spectra derived from these strains were correctly assigned at the genus and species levels, respectively. The establishment of a score and a threshold permitted to validate 80.79% of the results obtained. A standardization function (SF) was also implemented and tested on FTIR data from another instrument on a different site and permitted to increase the percentage of well predicted spectra for this set from 72.15% to 89.13%. This study confirms the good performance of high throughput FTIR spectroscopy for fungal identification using a spectral library of molds of industrial relevance.

Diagnosis of hepatocellular carcinoma in cirrhotic patients: a proof-of-concept study using serum micro-Raman spectroscopy.

Hepatocellular carcinoma (HCC) is the third most common cause of cancer death worldwide. The development of novel diagnostic methods is needed to detect tumours at an early stage when patients are eligible for curative treatments. The purpose of this proof-of-concept study was to determine if micro-Raman spectroscopy applied to the sera of cirrhotic patients may be an alternative method for rapidly discriminating patients with and without HCC. Serum samples were collected from 2 groups of patients: cirrhotic patients with HCC (n = 37) and without HCC (n = 34). Two different approaches were used, dried serum drops and freeze-dried serum, and micro-Raman spectra were acquired in the point-mode with a 785 nm laser excitation in the spectral range of 600-1800 cm(-1). Spectra were quality-tested and pre-processed (smoothing, baseline subtraction, vector normalization). Using principal component analysis, the 2 classes, corresponding to cirrhotic patients with and without HCC, could not be differentiated. In contrast, the support vector machine method using the leave-one-out cross validation procedure was able to correctly classify the two groups of patients with an overall rate of accuracy of 84.5% to 90.2% for dried serum drops and 86% to 91.5% for freeze-dried serum. These results are promising and support the concept that serum micro-Raman spectroscopy may become a useful diagnostic tool to detect biomarkers in the field of cancer, as described here for distinguishing between cirrhotic patients with and without HCC.

Activated sludge behaviour in a batch reactor in the presence of antibiotics: study of extracellular polymeric substances.

The influence of Erythromycin, Roxithromycin, Amoxicillin, Tetracycline and Sulfamethoxazole on municipal sludge in batch reactors was investigated. The study was focused on extracellular polymeric substances (EPS) as indicator of bacteria sensitivity to toxic agents. The EPS were analysed by UV-Vis and FT-IR spectroscopies and by size exclusion chromatography. It was found that Erythromycin and Roxithromycin induced a significant increase of bound EPS in flocs. This was attributed to a protection mechanism of the bacteria. Erythromycin was the only antibiotic which inhibited COD and nitrogen removal.

Misinterpretation of ISO 4049 standard recommendations: Impact on Young's modulus and conversion degree of dental composites.

OBJECTIVES: The purpose of this study was to study the effects on Young's modulus and conversion degree of variations in polymerization conditions during the 3-point bending test of composite samples in accordance with the ISO 4049 standard. METHODS: Three nanocomposites were used in the 3-point bending test based on the conditions described in the ISO 4049 standard. Samples of 2 mm × 2 mm x 25 mm were fabricated and tested with a different number of irradiation points and irradiation time. Conversion degree of the samples were also measured by micro-Raman spectroscopy and correlated with the Young's modulus values obtained for each one. RESULTS: The variations in curing protocol during specimen's realization influenced the Young's modulus and degree of conversion of all composites. These two properties correlated well. The ISO 4049 standard defines the conditions for performing the properties tests of composites to allow reproducibility and comparison of different studies. Concerning the 3-point bending test, even a minimal change in the state causes differences in the results obtained. The standard should thus clarify the tools that can be used when producing samples in order to minimize discrepancies. SIGNIFICANCE: The influence of the parameters surrounding the design of the samples should be controlled and defined so as not to include bias in the studies carried out. This will allow literature studies to be compared with more accuracy.

Detection of pathological aortic tissues by infrared multispectral imaging and chemometrics.

Processing of multispectral images is becoming an important issue, especially in terms of data mining for disease diagnosis. We report here an original image analysis procedure developed in order to compare 42 infrared multispectral images acquired on human ascending aortic healthy and pathological tissues. Each image contained about 2500 infrared absorption spectra, each composed of 1641 variables (wavenumbers). To process this large data set, we have restricted the spectral window used to the 1800-950 cm(-1) spectral range and selected 100 spectra from the aortic media, which is the most altered part of the aortic tissue in aneurysms. Prior to this selection, a spectral quality test was performed to eliminate 'bad' spectra. Our data set was first subjected to a discriminant analysis, which allowed separation of aortic tissues in two groups corresponding respectively to normal and aneurysmal states. Then a K-means analysis, based on 20 groups, allowed reconstruction of infrared images using false-colours and discriminated between pathological and healthy tissues. These results demonstrate the usefulness of such data processing methods for the analysis and comparison of a set of spectral images.

Estimating and correcting mie scattering in synchrotron-based microscopic fourier transform infrared spectra by extended multiplicative signal correction.

We present an approach for estimating and correcting Mie scattering occurring in infrared spectra of single cells, at diffraction limited probe size, as in synchrotron based microscopy. The Mie scattering is modeled by extended multiplicative signal correction (EMSC) and subtracted from the vibrational absorption. Because the Mie scattering depends non-linearly on alpha, the product of the radius and the refractive index of the medium/sphere causing it, a new method was developed for estimating the Mie scattering by EMSC for unknown radius and refractive index of the Mie scatterer. The theoretically expected Mie contributions for a range of different alpha values were computed according to the formulae developed by Van de Hulst (1957). The many simulated spectra were then summarized by a six-dimensional subspace model by principal component analysis (PCA). This subspace model was used in EMSC to estimate and correct for Mie scattering, as well as other additive and multiplicative interference effects. The approach was applied to a set of Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) absorbance spectra measured for individual lung cancer cells in order to remove unwanted interferences and to estimate ranges of important alpha values for each spectrum. The results indicate that several cell components may contribute to the Mie scattering.

In-vitro analysis of normal and aneurismal human ascending aortic tissues using FT-IR microspectroscopy.

FTIR microspectroscopy has shown to be a proven tool in the investigation of many tissue types. We have used this spectroscopic approach to analyse structural differences between normal and aneurismal aortic tissues and also aortas from patients with congenital anomalies like aortic bicuspid valves. Spectral analysis showed important variations in amide I and II regions, related to changes in alpha-helix and beta-sheet secondary structure of proteins that seem to be correlated to structural modifications of collagen and elastin. These proteins are the major constituents of the aortic wall associated to smooth muscular cells. The amide regions have thus been identified as a marker of structural modifications related to these proteins whose modifications can be associated to a given aortic pathological situation. Both univariate (total absorbance image and band ratio) and multivariate (principal components analysis) analyses of the spectral information contained in the infrared images have been performed. Differences between tissues have been identified by these two approaches and allowed to separate each group of aortic tissues. However, with univariate band ratio analysis, the pathological group was found to be composed of samples from aneurismal aortas associated or not with an aortic bicuspid valve. In contrast, PCA was able to separate these two types of aortic pathologies. For other groups, PCA and band ratio analysis can differentiate between normal, aneurismal, and none dilated aortas from patients with a bicuspid aortic valve.

Characterisation of uterine sarcoma cell lines exhibiting MDR phenotype by vibrational spectroscopy.

Multidrug resistance (MDR) enables cancer cells to escape cytotoxic insults of anticancer drugs. Rapid identification of cells exhibiting the MDR phenotype is very important since it can lead to an effective and individual patient based treatment plan. We have investigated a combined vibrational spectroscopic approach, using both micro-Raman and FTIR techniques, in order to characterise a sensitive human uterine sarcoma cell line MES-SA and its multidrug-resistant derivative Garf. In this study, these two complementary methods have been evaluated via the use of principal components analysis (PCA), for discrimination of cells exhibiting the MDR phenotype. Our results indicate that, though they inherently have different sensitivities, both Raman and IR methods can provide a good differentiation of cell phenotypes.

Structure-activity relation in camptothecin antitumor drugs: why a detailed molecular characterisation of their lactone and carboxylate forms by Raman and SERS spectroscopies?

Lactone and carboxylate forms of potent antitumor agents, camptothecins (CPTs) have been studied by Raman, Fourier-transform Raman (FT-Raman) and surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectroscopy. Similarity of the Raman spectra of CPTs with corresponding FT-Raman spectra in the near-infrared allowed the latter to be compared with their SERS counterparts in order to analyse the interaction of the drugs with silver colloids. Different types of silver colloids (reduced with sodium borohydride or sodium citrate, with or without activation by anions) have been evaluated. Citrate-reduced colloid, activated with chloride anions (CAS) has been found to be the best compromise for SERS studies of both forms of CPTs. We suggest that in general CPTs are adsorbed on CAS via the nitrogen in ring B and are more inclined to a flat orientation than to a perpendicular one. However, probable interactions of substitution groups and/or of the COO- groups of hydrolysed CPTs with the CAS surface introduce some particularities in the adsorption patterns. As a result, SERS spectra are highly sensitive to hydrolysis and substitutions at distant rings of CPT and uniquely characteristic of each of the CPT derivatives. The pronounced hydrolysis-induced changes, similar in the Raman and SERS spectra of CPTs, involve similar vibrations in the spectra of different CPTs. Vibrational assignments, proposed for the main Raman and SERS bands of CPT and its derivatives (21-lactam-S-CPT, 10,11-(methylenedioxy)-CPT, CPT-11, SN-38 and topotecan) indicate that most of the bands which decreased upon lactone hydrolysis are those preferentially related to stretching modes of the quinoline rings A and B, and the bands which increased are those of the ring D stretching modes. Our data make the spectroscopic approach very promising for the further investigations of the molecular mechanisms of biological activity of CPTs.

Kinetics of lactone hydrolysis in antitumor drugs of camptothecin series as studied by fluorescence spectroscopy.

Potent antitumor activity exhibited by 20-S-camptothecin (CPT) and numerous derivatives is known to be lost upon opening of the alpha-hydroxy-lactone ring of these drugs, hydrolyzable at neutral and basic pH. To quantify in 'real time' the lactone hydrolysis reaction in CPTs under physiological conditions, we have applied a non-perturbing approach by fluorescence spectroscopy. CPT and a set of its derivatives (21-lactam-S-CPT, 10,11-(methylenedioxy)-CPT, CPT-11, SN-38, topotecan, tricyclic ketone-CPT) with antitumor activity varying from negligible to 10 times that of CPT have been studied. Prior to the kinetic measurements, the effects of substitutions, pH, polarity of molecular environment, lactone ring opening (lactone-carboxylate transition) have been investigated in terms of the UV-visible absorption and fluorescence emission spectra of CPTs. Then the determined parameters of the fluorescence emission spectra corresponding to the respective lactone and carboxylate forms have been used to estimate the residual lactone percentage as a function of time. The reproducibility of the obtained data demonstrates that the spectroscopic approach provides a satisfactory precision for this kind of measurements. For CPT at pH 7.3, the lactone half-life was 29.4 +/- 1.7 min and the lactone percentage at equilibrium was 20.9 +/- 0.3%. Within a series of derivatives with substitutions at quinoline rings, the lactone half-life varied from 29 to 32 min and the equilibrium lactone content varied from 15% to 23%. For each compound, even slight increase of pH from 7.1 to 7.3 or from 7.3 to 7.6 logically leads to a remarkable decrease of both lactone half-life and equilibrium lactone percentage.

ATR-FTIR spectroscopic investigation of E. coli transconjugants beta-lactams-resistance phenotype.

Hyphenation of attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy and cluster analysis has been used to characterise a susceptible Escherichia coli K12 strain and the transconjugants TEM-1, TEM-2, TEM-3, SHV-2, SHV-3, SHV-4. A good discrimination of the susceptible strain from the transconjugants was obtained. Although a limited success was achieved in the differentiation of SHV and TEM phenotypes in general, results obtained with TEM-2 and SHV-3 were convincing. Spectral differences observed are ascribed to the global effects of the conjugation process, particularly their repercussions in the nucleic acids and carbohydrate absorbing regions, rather than to beta-lactamase point-mutations.

FTIR spectroscopic analysis of Saccharomyces cerevisiae cell walls: study of an anomalous strain exhibiting a pink-colored cell phenotype.

A new strain, exhibiting an intriguing pink-colored cell phenotype, was obtained after an encoding alpha-glucosidase gene from an archaebacteria Thermococcus hydrothermalis was cloned by functional complementation of a mal11 Saccharomyces cerevisiae mutant TCY70. The possible implications of the alpha-glucosidase on the cell wall were evaluated by infrared spectroscopy and data indicate a 30% decrease in mannoproteins and an increase in beta-glucans. The loss of mannoproteins was confirmed by experiments on cells deprived of peptidomannans. Modifications in the major components of the cell wall did not jeopardize cell viability. Such rapid optical spectroscopic method can be used to screen a wide range of yeast mutants.

Micro-Raman spectroscopy for optical pathology of oral squamous cell carcinoma.

Micro-Raman spectra of formalin-fixed oral squamous normal and carcinoma tissues, stored at room temperature for 2 months, have been recorded. Spectra were recorded both in the epithelial and subepithelial regions of the tissues. No noticeable spectral contamination due to formalin was observed. Very significant differences between spectra of normal epithelial and malignant epithelial samples were found. No such differences in spectra of subepithelial malignant and subepithelial normal samples could be observed. This study shows that spectra from the epithelial region changes drastically because of malignancy-induced biochemical changes in this region. Major differences between normal and malignant spectra seem to arise from the protein composition, conformational/structural changes, and possible increase in protein content in malignant epithelia. The differences between normal epithelial and subepithelial spectra, as expected, arise mainly from the collagen in subepithelial tissue. Principal component analysis of the combined sets of spectra-epithelial and subepithelial, normal and malignant- showed that very good discrimination can be achieved by Raman microspectroscopy. This study thus validates the suitability of formalin-fixed tissues for optical pathology in oral malignancy.

Vibrational spectroscopy in stem cell characterisation: is there a niche?

Vibrational spectroscopy using both infrared and Raman spectroscopies has been used in recent years with the aim to aid clinicians in disease diagnosis. More recently, these techniques have been applied to study stem cell differentiation and to determine stem cell presence in tissues. These studies have demonstrated the potential of these techniques in better characterising stem cell differentiation phenotypes with potential applications in tissue engineering strategies. However, before the translation of vibrational spectroscopy into clinical practice becomes a reality, several issues still need to be addressed. We describe here an overview of the work carried out so far and the problems that might be encountered when using vibrational spectroscopy.

Differentiation and identification of filamentous fungi by high-throughput FTIR spectroscopic analysis of mycelia.

Routine identification of fungi based on phenotypic and genotypic methods can be fastidious and time-consuming. In this context, there is a constant need for new approaches allowing the rapid identification of molds. Fourier-transform infrared (FTIR) spectroscopy appears as such an indicated method. The objective of this work was to evaluate the potential of FTIR spectroscopy for an early differentiation and identification of filamentous fungi. One hundred and thirty-one strains identified using DNA sequencing, were analyzed using FTIR spectroscopy of the mycelia obtained after a reduced culture time of 48 h compared to current conventional methods. Partial least square discriminant analysis was used as a chemometric method to analyze the spectral data and for identification of the fungal strains from the phylum to the species level. Calibration models were constructed using 106 strains pertaining to 14 different genera and 32 species and were used to identify 25 fungal strains in a blind manner. Identification levels of 98.97% and 98.77% achieved were correctly assigned to the genus and species levels respectively. FTIR spectroscopy with its high discriminating power and rapidity therefore shows strong promise for routine fungal identification. Upgrading of our database is ongoing to test the technique's robustness.

Analysis of structural changes in normal and aneurismal human aortic tissues using FTIR microscopy.

Aortic aneurisms are frequently asymptomatic but can induce dramatic complications. The diagnosis is only based on the aortic diameter and not on a structural and compositional basis. In this preliminary study, we propose infrared microspectroscopy to nondestructively probe normal and aneurismal human aortas. Spectra from 19 human ascending aortic biopsies (10 normal and 9 aneurismal) were acquired using infrared microspectroscopy. A 1500 x 150 microm(2) area of each 7-microm thick cryosection was investigated using a 30-microm spatial resolution with a total of about 200 spectra per sample. Spectral differences between normal and aneurismal tissues were mainly located in spectral regions related to proteins, such as elastin and collagen, and proteoglycans (1750-1000 cm(-1)). Tissue heterogeneity and sample classification have been evaluated using hierarchical cluster analysis of individual or mean spectra and their second derivative. Using spectral range related to proteins, 100% of good classification was obtained whereas the proteoglycan spectral range was less discriminant. This in vitro study demonstrates the potential of such technique to differentiate between normal and aneurismal aortas using selected spectral ranges. Future investigations will be focused on these specific spectral regions to determine the role of elastin and collagen in the discrimination of normal and pathological aortas.

An overview on applications of optical spectroscopy in cervical cancers.

Despite advances in the treatment modalities, cervical cancers are one of the leading causes of cancer death among women. Pap smear and colposcopy are the existing screening methods and histopathology is the gold standard for diagnosis. However, these methods have been shown to be prone to reporting errors, which could be due to their subjective interpretation. Radiotherapy is the mainstay of treatment for the locally advanced stages of cervical cancers. The typical treatment regimen spans over 4 months, from the first fraction of radiation to clinical assessment of tumor response to radiotherapy. It is often noticed that due to intrinsic properties of tumors, patients with the same clinical stage and histological type respond differently to radiotherapy. Hence, there exists a need for the development of new methods for early diagnosis as well as for early prediction of tumor radioresponse. Optical spectroscopic methods have been shown to be potential alternatives for use in cancer diagnosis. In this review, we provide a brief background on the anatomy and histology of the uterine cervix and the etiology of cervical cancers; we briefly discuss the optical spectroscopic approach to cervical cancer diagnosis. A very brief discussion on radiation therapy and radiation resistance is also provided. We also share our experiences with the Raman spectroscopic methodologies in cervical cancer diagnosis as well as in the prediction of tumor radioresponse.

FTIR and Raman microspectroscopy of normal, benign, and malignant formalin-fixed ovarian tissues.

Ovarian cancer is the sixth most common cancer among women worldwide, and mortality rates from this cancer are higher than for other gynecological cancers. This is attributed to a lack of reliable screening methods and the inadequacy of treatment modalities for the advanced stages of the disease. FTIR and Raman spectroscopic studies of formalin-fixed normal, benign, and malignant ovarian tissues have been undertaken in order to investigate and attempt to understand the underlying biochemical changes associated with the disease, and to explore the feasibility of discriminating between these different tissue types. Raman spectra of normal tissues indicate the dominance of proteins and lower contents of DNA and lipids compared to malignant tissues. Among the pathological tissues studied, spectra from benign tissues seem to contain more proteins and less DNA and lipids compared to malignant tissue spectra. FTIR studies corroborate these findings. FTIR and Raman spectra of both normal and benign tissues showed more similarities than those of malignant tissues. Cluster analysis of first-derivative Raman spectra in the 700-1700 cm(-1) range gave two clear groups, one corresponding to malignant and the other to normal+benign tissues. At a lower heterogeneity level, the normal+benign cluster gave three nonoverlapping subclusters, one corresponding to normal and two for benign tissues. Cluster analysis of second-derivative FTIR spectra in the combined spectral regions of 1540-1680 and 1720-1780 cm(-1) resulted into two clear clusters corresponding to malignant and normal+benign tissues. The cluster corresponding to normal+benign tissues produced nonoverlapping subclusters for normal and benign tissues at a lower heterogeneity level. The findings of this study demonstrate the feasibility of Raman and FTIR microspectroscopic discrimination of formalin-fixed normal, benign, and malignant ovarian tissues.