Raman Spectroscopy and Regenerative Medicine: A Review

The field of regenerative medicine spans a wide area of the biomedical landscape—from single cell culture in laboratories to human whole-organ transplantation. To ensure that research is transferrable from bench to bedside, it is critical that we are able to assess regenerative processes in cells, tissues, organs and patients at a biochemical level. Regeneration relies on a large number of biological factors, which can be perturbed using conventional bioanalytical techniques. A versatile, non-invasive, non-destructive technique for biochemical analysis would be invaluable for the study of regeneration; and Raman spectroscopy is a potential solution. Raman spectroscopy is an analytical method by which chemical data are obtained through the inelastic scattering of light. Since its discovery in the 1920s, physicists and chemists have used Raman scattering to investigate the chemical composition of a vast range of both liquid and solid materials. However, only in the last two decades has this form of spectroscopy been employed in biomedical research. Particularly relevant to regenerative medicine are recent studies illustrating its ability to characterise and discriminate between healthy and disease states in cells, tissue biopsies and in patients. This review will briefly outline the principles behind Raman spectroscopy and its variants, describe key examples of its applications to biomedicine, and consider areas of regenerative medicine that would benefit from this non-invasive bioanalytical tool

Half-life of the 15/2(+) state of I-135: A test of E2 seniority relations

International audienceThe half-life of the 15/2+1 state of the 3-valence-proton nucleus 135I has been measured to be 1.74(8) ns using the EXILL-FATIMA mixed array of Ge and LaBr3 detectors. The nuclei were produced following the cold neutron-induced fission of a 235U target at the PF1B beam line of the Institut Laue-Langevin. The extracted B(E2;15/2+→11/2+) value enabled a test of seniority relations for the first time between E2 transition rates. Large-scale shell-model calculations were performed for 134Te and 135I, and reinterpreted in a single-orbit approach. The results show that the two-body component of the E2 operator can be large whereas energy shifts due to the three-body component of the effective interaction are small

Feline low-grade alimentary lymphoma: an emerging entity and a potential animal model for human disease

Background: Low-grade alimentary lymphoma (LGAL) is characterised by the infiltration of neoplastic T-lymphocytes, typically in the small intestine. The incidence of LGAL has increased over the last ten years and it is now the most frequent digestive neoplasia in cats and comprises 60 to 75% of gastrointestinal lymphoma cases. Given that LGAL shares common clinical, paraclinical and ultrasonographic features with inflammatory bowel diseases, establishing a diagnosis is challenging. A review was designed to summarise current knowledge of the pathogenesis, diagnosis, prognosis and treatment of feline LGAL. Electronic searches of PubMed and Science Direct were carried out without date or language restrictions. Results: A total of 176 peer-reviewed documents were identified and most of which were published in the last twenty years. 130 studies were found from the veterinary literature and 46 from the human medicine literature. Heterogeneity of study designs and outcome measures made meta-analysis inappropriate. The pathophysiology of feline LGAL still needs to be elucidated, not least the putative roles of infectious agents, environmental factors as well as genetic events. The most common therapeutic strategy is combination treatment with prednisolone and chlorambucil, and prolonged remission can often be achieved. Developments in immunohistochemical analysis and clonality testing have improved the confidence of clinicians in obtaining a correct diagnosis between LGAL and IBD. The condition shares similarities with some diseases in humans, especially human indolent T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder of the gastrointestinal tract. Conclusions: The pathophysiology of feline LGAL still needs to be elucidated and prospective studies as well as standardisation of therapeutic strategies are needed. A combination of conventional histopathology and immunohistochemistry remains the current gold-standard test, but clinicians should be cautious about reclassifying cats previously diagnosed with IBD to lymphoma on the basis of clonality testing. Importantly, feline LGAL could be considered to be a potential animal model for indolent digestive T-cell lymphoproliferative disorder, a rare condition in human medicine

Effect of β-sitosterol in the antioxidative activity of oxidized lipid–amine reaction products

Phosphatidylethanolamine (PE), phosphatidylcholine (PC), lysine (Lys), and mixtures of them were tested for activity in a polar compound-stripped olive oil (SOO) and in the same oil after addition of 1500 ppm of β-sitosterol (phytosterol-added olive oil, PAO) to evaluate the role of phytosterols in the antioxidant activity of oxidized lipid–amine products. None of the added compounds protected either SOO or PAO, when tested alone at 0–400 ppm. However, mixtures of PE/Lys and PC/Lys (100/300, 200/200, and 300/100 ppm) significantly increased the induction periods of both oils. Furthermore, there was a synergism between the phospholipids and Lys, which was a consequence of the reaction between the carbonyl compounds produced in the oxidation of the phospholipid fatty acid chains and the amino group of Lys. Some of these carbonyl–amine reaction products were determined by gas chromatography–mass spectrometry after converting them into volatile derivatives. In addition, stepwise multiple regression analysis demonstrated the relationship between the induction periods and the formed products. However, the contribution of carbonyl–amine reaction products to oil stability also depended on the type of oil, therefore suggesting a role of β-sitosterol in the antioxidative activity of the compounds produced by carbonyl–amine reactions. This contribution was also confirmed by the higher synergism observed for PE/Lys and PC/Lys mixtures in PAO than in SOO.This study was supported in part by the European Union (FEDER funds) and the Plan Nacional de I + D of the Ministerio de Educación y Ciencia of Spain (Project AGL2006-01092).Peer reviewe