Characterization of human corneal stem cells by synchrotroninfrared micro-spectroscopy

[摘要] Purpose: The purpose of this study was to use high resolutionsynchrotron radiation-based Fourier Transform Infrared (FTIR)micro-spectroscopy coupled with multivariate analysis to investigate thecharacteristics of adult stem cell (SC) and transit amplifying (TA) cellpopulations of the human corneal epithelium.Methods: Spectra of individual SC and TA cells in situ fromcryosections of human cornea were collected using a synchrotronmicro-spectroscopy facility at Daresbury laboratory, UK. Multivariateanalysis and Mann Whitney U tests were used to analyse the spectral datafrom the SC and TA cell populations.Results: There were marked differences between the median spectra ofthe two cell populations. This correlated with their level ofdifferentiation and functional specialization. Multivariate (principalcomponent) analysis revealed that the cell populations could besegregated into distinct clusters, with only slight overlap between thetwo cell types. Significant (p<0.05) spectral differences were foundin the spectral regions associated with nucleic acid, protein andlipids.Conclusions: Synchrotron FTIR micro-spectroscopy together withprincipal component analysis is able to discriminate between SC and TAcell populations. Our results also suggest a small sub-population ofcorneal epithelial cells in the SC niche have TA cell-likecharacteristics. Many of the spectral differences between the SC and TAcell populations relate to differences in nucleic acid conformation.

[学科分类] 生物化学/生物物理