In vitro Raman spectroscopy of healthy mammals crystalline lenses

✍ Scribed by A. Antunes; S.E. Abud-Filho; M.L.A. Temperini; S.L. Morelhão

• Publisher: John Wiley and Sons
• Year: 2005
• Tongue: English
• Weight: 267 KB
• Volume: 2
• Category: Article
• ISSN: 1612-2011
• DOI: 10.1002/lapl.200510014

✦ Synopsis

The crystalline lens is a transparent biological
material, and a complex inhomogeneous optical element in the
vision system of mammals. It is a fiber cell structures [1].
Approximately 90% of the fiber cells composition are proteins
responsible for the high refractive index of the lenses. This
paper presents Raman spectroscopy as a tool for identification of
the proteins and further diagnostic of disease in the lenses.
Would all mammal lenses be made of the same proteins? This is the
question motivating this work. Raman spectroscopy is a rapid and
non-destructive optical method for providing chemical information
on molecular structures [2], and has been successfully
applied to a variety of biological systems [2,3]. Our aim
here is to investigate the protein average distribution in the
lenses of distinct mammals by following main differences in the
Raman spectral signature. The Raman signatures of healthy
crystalline lenses from canine, mouse, pig, rabbit and horse were
characterized in vitro. The results indicate that there are no
substantial differences at all animals studied.