Using organotypic raft cultures to understand the biological basis of Raman spectra from skin
Keller, Matthew David
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2006-04-17
Abstract
Recent studies have demonstrated that organotypic raft cultures serve as an excellent model for the optical behavior of actual tissues. Other studies in our lab have demonstrated that Raman spectroscopy can discriminate among basal cell carcinoma, squamous cell carcinoma (SCC), non-normal benign, and normal skin in vivo. The primary purpose of this work is to understand the biologic basis of skin Raman spectra and to determine the impact of the location of SCC cells within raft cultures on the spectral bands. Rafts were constructed with SCC cells in the stroma or in the epidermis, and measurements were taken at multiple time points with a Raman probe system. The data allowed tissue discrimination as before, and they showed that the location and concentration of SCC cells do not have a large influence on macroscopically-gathered data. In addition, data gathered from the epidermal vs. stromal layers, combined with histology, support the hypothesis that Raman spectroscopy can detect biochemical changes associated with malignancy before such changes are evident via histology.