Photonics probing of pup brain tissue and molecular-specific nuclear nanostructure alterations due to fetal alcoholism via light scattering/localization approaches

SIGNIFICANCE

Light is a good probe for studying the nanoscale-level structural or molecular-specific structural properties of brain cells/tissue due to stress, alcohol, or any other abnormalities. Chronic alcoholism during pregnancy, i.e., fetal alcoholism, being teratogenic, results in fetal alcohol syndrome, and other neurological disorders. Understanding the nano-to-submicron scale spatial structural properties of pup brain cells/tissues using light/photonic probes could provide a plethora of information in understanding the effects of fetal alcoholism.

AIM

Using both light scattering and light localization techniques to probe alterations in nano- to-submicron scale mass density or refractive index fluctuations in brain cells/tissues of mice pups, exposed to fetal alcoholism.

APPROACH

We use the mesoscopic physics-based dual spectroscopic imaging techniques, partial wave spectroscopy (PWS) and molecular-specific inverse participation ratio (IPR) using confocal imaging, to quantify structural alterations in brain tissues and chromatin/histone in brain cells, respectively, in 60 days postnatal mice pup brain, exposed to fetal alcoholism.

RESULTS

The finer focusing PWS analysis on tissues shows an increase in the degree of structural disorder strength in the pup brain tissues. Furthermore, results of the molecular-specific light localization IPR technique show an increase in the degree of spatial molecular mass density structural disorder in DNA and a decrease in the degree in histone.

CONCLUSIONS

In particular, we characterize the spatial pup brain structures from the molecular to tissue levels and address the plausible reasons for such as mass density fluctuations in fetal alcoholism.

Photonic technique to study the effects of probiotics on chronic alcoholic brain cells by quantifying their molecular specific structural alterations via confocal imaging

Molecular specific photonics localization method, the inverse participation ratio (IPR) technique, is a powerful procedure to probe the nano- to submicron scales structural alterations in cells/tissues in their abnormalities due to chronic alcoholism using confocal imaging. Chronic alcoholism introduces abnormalities in brain cells/tissue at the nanoscale level that results in behavioural and psychological disorders which are not well understood. On the other hand, probiotics such as Lactobacillus plantarum enhances brain functions in chronic alcoholism. Using the IPR technique, we probe the molecular specific spatial structural alterations in glial brain cells astrocytes and microglia, as well as in chromatins in the nuclei of cortex brain cells, with or without probiotic treatments in chronic alcoholism. The results show chronic alcoholism alone harms brain cells and the probiotic treatment in chronic alcoholism reverses alcoholic damage in the brain cells/tissues toward normalcy.

Optical detection of the structural properties of tumor tissue generated by xenografting of drug-sensitive and drug-resistant cancer cells using partial wave spectroscopy (PWS)

A mesoscopic physics-based optical imaging technique, partial wave spectroscopy (PWS), has been used for the detection of cancer by probing nanoscale structural alterations in cells/tissue. The development of drug-resistant cancer cells/tissues during chemotherapy is a major challenge in cancer treatment. In this paper, using a mouse model and PWS, the structural properties of tumor tissue grown in 3D structures by xenografting drug-resistant and drug-sensitive human prostate cancer cells having 2D structures, are studied. The results show that the 3D xenografted tissues maintain a similar hierarchy of the degree of structural disorder properties as that of the 2D original drug-sensitive and drug-resistant cells.