A Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopic imaging investigation into an animal model exhibiting glioblastoma multiforme

Abstract

Glioblastoma multiforme (GBM) is a highly malignant human brain tumour for which no cure is available at present. Numerous clinical studies as well as animal experiments are under way with the goal being to understand tumour biology and develop potential therapeutic approaches. C6 cell glioma in the adult rat is a frequently used and well accepted animal model for the malignant human glial tumour. By combining standard analytical methods such as histology and immunohistochemistry with Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR) microspectroscopic imaging and multivariate statistical approaches, we are developing a novel approach to tumour diagnosis which allows us to obtain information about the structure and composition of tumour tissues that could not be obtained easily with either method alone. We have used a "Stingray" FTIR imaging spectrometer to analyse and compare the compositions of coronal brain tissue sections of a tumour-bearing animal and those from a healthy animal. We have found that the tumour tissue has a characteristic chemical signature, which distinguishes it from tumour-free brain tissue. The physical-chemical differences, determined by image and spectral comparison are consistent with changes in total protein absorbance, phosphodiester absorbance and physical dispersive artefacts. The results indicate that FTIR imaging analysis could become a valuable analytic method in brain tumour research and possibly in the diagnosis of human brain tumours.

FTIR Imaging of Tissues: Techniques and Methods of Analysis

“…It should be noted that various multivariate approaches have been employed for sensitive and selective classification of the grade and origin of brain tumours, i.e. uhCA [120,122], K-means [118,121,123], SImCA (Soft Independent modeling of Class Analogy) [119,123], PCA [123,125], LdA [116][117][118]124] and their combinations. In this section, we introduce the reader to the results of FtIR imaging of the brain tissue in neurodegenerative disorders such as Alzheimer's and Parkinson diseases, multiple sclerosis and others, for which the etiology or clinical diagnosis have not been clearly revealed, and are still the subject of intensive investigations.…”

Disease recognition by infrared and Raman spectroscopy

“…Tissue samples from these animal models were studied by IR spectroscopy [35,64] and Raman spectroscopy [26,36]. Raman images were collected from brain-tissue blocks using a fiberoptic probe and a motorized stage [26].…”

The combination of artificial neural networks and synchrotron radiation-based infrared micro-spectroscopy for a study on the protein composition of human glial tumors

“…This suggests that chemical trace elements may also contribute to neurobiology of gliomas. In turn, previous studies have shown that FTIR spectroscopy, coupled with various sophisticated statistical techniques, could be a powerful tool to trace macromolecular processes underlying vascularization, angiogenesis, necrosis and apoptosis in human and animal models of brain gliomas infiltration [11] . A number of researchers have reported that these processes are associated with pronounced modifications in protein secondary structure.…”

“…All of these studies show high potential of FTIR spectroscopy to develop into a powerful tool in the diagnosis of cancer. Nonetheless, there is still a need to utilize more sophisticated techniques for both the data analysis and processing to extract more details from FTIR spectra [11] . This may potentially assist modern pathology by taking into account more molecular factors, sometimes tremendously subtle, to improve our understanding of biochemical processes underlying a great variety of diseases as well as for further FTIRbased classification issues [11] .…”