Infrared vibrational spectroscopy: a rapid and novel diagnostic and monitoring tool for cystinuria

Cystinuria is the commonest inherited cause of nephrolithiasis (~1% in adults; ~6% in children) and is the result of impaired cystine reabsorption in the renal proximal tubule. Cystine is poorly soluble in urine with a solubility of ~1 mM and can readily form microcrystals that lead to cystine stone formation, especially at low urine pH. Diagnosis of cystinuria is made typically by ion-exchange chromatography (IEC) detection and quantitation, which is slow, laboursome and costly. More rapid and frequent monitoring of urinary cystine concentration would significantly improve the diagnosis and clinical management of cystinuria. We used attenuated total reflection - Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (ATR-FTIR) to detect and quantitate insoluble cystine in 22 cystinuric and 5 healthy control urine samples. Creatinine concentration was also determined by ATR-FTIR to adjust for urinary concentration/dilution. Urine was centrifuged, the insoluble fraction re-suspended in 5 μL water and dried on the ATR prism. Cystine was quantitated using its 1296 cm−1 absorption band and levels matched with parallel measurements made using IEC. ATR-FTIR afforded a rapid and inexpensive method of detecting and quantitating insoluble urinary cystine. This proof-of-concept study provides a basis for developing a high-throughput, cost-effective diagnostic method for cystinuria, and for point-of-care clinical monitoring

Multimodal microscopy for automated histologic analysis of prostate cancer

<p>Abstract</p> <p>Background</p> <p>Prostate cancer is the single most prevalent cancer in US men whose gold standard of diagnosis is histologic assessment of biopsies. Manual assessment of stained tissue of all biopsies limits speed and accuracy in clinical practice and research of prostate cancer diagnosis. We sought to develop a fully-automated multimodal microscopy method to distinguish cancerous from non-cancerous tissue samples.</p> <p>Methods</p> <p>We recorded chemical data from an unstained tissue microarray (TMA) using Fourier transform infrared (FT-IR) spectroscopic imaging. Using pattern recognition, we identified epithelial cells without user input. We fused the cell type information with the corresponding stained images commonly used in clinical practice. Extracted morphological features, optimized by two-stage feature selection method using a minimum-redundancy-maximal-relevance (mRMR) criterion and sequential floating forward selection (SFFS), were applied to classify tissue samples as cancer or non-cancer.</p> <p>Results</p> <p>We achieved high accuracy (area under ROC curve (AUC) >0.97) in cross-validations on each of two data sets that were stained under different conditions. When the classifier was trained on one data set and tested on the other data set, an AUC value of ~0.95 was observed. In the absence of IR data, the performance of the same classification system dropped for both data sets and between data sets.</p> <p>Conclusions</p> <p>We were able to achieve very effective fusion of the information from two different images that provide very different types of data with different characteristics. The method is entirely transparent to a user and does not involve any adjustment or decision-making based on spectral data. By combining the IR and optical data, we achieved high accurate classification.</p

The composition of acids in bitumen and in products from saponification of kerogen: Investigation of their role as connecting kerogen and mineral matrix

In order to obtain more information and to understand the nature of relation between organic and mineral matter in oil shales, the compositions of soluble bitumen fractions obtained by extraction from Bulgarian oil shales before and after demineralization with 10% HCl, concentrated HE and a HF/HCl mixture were investigated. The four extracts were quantitatively examined by IR and H-1 NMR spectroscopy. The investigation of isolated acidic material of the bitumen fractions showed that the fatty acids are present in bitumen fractions as free acids, esters and salts. The amount of free acids in bitumen is very small. The dominant part of bitumen acids is associated with mineral components of the oil shales as well as part of them is included in the mineral matrix, and can be separated only after deep demineralization. The kerogen of the oil shales, obtained after separation of the bitumen fractions and mineral components, was subjected to saponification in order to determine the amount of acids, bound as esters to the kerogen matrix. The major components found were n-carboxylic, alpha,omega,-di-carboxylic, and aromatic acids. The connection of kerogen with mineral components is accomplished by the participation of carboxylic and complicated ester bonds. Experimental data for the composition of bitumen acids give evidence that algae and terrestrial materials are initial sources in the formation of soluble organic matter of Bulgarian oil shale.Publisher's Versio

Thermochemical conversion of bean pods to carbon materials and gas

The preparation of activated carbons from bean pods by chemical (K(2)CO(3)) and physical (water vapor) activation was investigated. The carbon prepared by chemical activation presented more developed porous structure than one obtained by water vapor activation. Carbon adsorbent with very low ash content and developed micropore structure is obtained by thermochemical treatment with conc.H(2)SO(4) of liquid products from carbonization of bean pods and activation with water vapour.Publisher's Versio