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    Revealing the Chemical Composition of Birch Pollen Grains by Raman Spectroscopic Imaging
    (Basel : Molecular Diversity Preservation International (MDPI), 2022) Stiebing, Clara; Post, Nele; Schindler, Claudia; Göhrig, Bianca; Lux, Harald; Popp, Jürgen; Heutelbeck, Astrid; Schie, Iwan W.
    The investigation of the biochemical composition of pollen grains is of the utmost interest for several environmental aspects, such as their allergenic potential and their changes in growth conditions due to climatic factors. In order to fully understand the composition of pollen grains, not only is an in-depth analysis of their molecular components necessary but also spatial information of, e.g., the thickness of the outer shell, should be recorded. However, there is a lack of studies using molecular imaging methods for a spatially resolved biochemical composition on a single-grain level. In this study, Raman spectroscopy was implemented as an analytical tool to investigate birch pollen by imaging single pollen grains and analyzing their spectral profiles. The imaging modality allowed us to reveal the layered structure of pollen grains based on the biochemical information of the recorded Raman spectra. Seven different birch pollen species collected at two different locations in Germany were investigated and compared. Using chemometric algorithms such as hierarchical cluster analysis and multiple-curve resolution, several components of the grain wall, such as sporopollenin, as well as the inner core presenting high starch concentrations, were identified and quantified. Differences in the concentrations of, e.g., sporopollenin, lipids and proteins in the pollen species at the two different collection sites were found, and are discussed in connection with germination and other growth processes.
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    Bladder tissue characterization using probe-based Raman spectroscopy: Evaluation of tissue heterogeneity and influence on the model prediction
    (Weinheim : Wiley-VCH-Verl., 2020) Cordero, Eliana; Rüger, Jan; Marti, Dominik; Mondol, Abdullah S.; Hasselager, Thomas; Mogensen, Karin; Hermann, Gregers G.; Popp, Jürgen; Schie, Iwan W.
    Existing approaches for early-stage bladder tumor diagnosis largely depend on invasive and time-consuming procedures, resulting in hospitalization, bleeding, bladder perforation, infection and other health risks for the patient. The reduction of current risk factors, while maintaining or even improving the diagnostic precision, is an underlying factor in clinical instrumentation research. For example, for clinic surveillance of patients with a history of noninvasive bladder tumors real-time tumor diagnosis can enable immediate laser-based removal of tumors using flexible cystoscopes in the outpatient clinic. Therefore, novel diagnostic modalities are required that can provide real-time in vivo tumor diagnosis. Raman spectroscopy provides biochemical information of tissue samples ex vivo and in vivo and without the need for complicated sample preparation and staining procedures. For the past decade there has been a rise in applications to diagnose and characterize early cancer in different organs, such as in head and neck, colon and stomach, but also different pathologies, for example, inflammation and atherosclerotic plaques. Bladder pathology has also been studied but only with little attention to aspects that can influence the diagnosis, such as tissue heterogeneity, data preprocessing and model development. The present study presents a clinical investigative study on bladder biopsies to characterize the tumor grading ex vivo, using a compact fiber probe-based imaging Raman system, as a crucial step towards in vivo Raman endoscopy. Furthermore, this study presents an evaluation of the tissue heterogeneity of highly fluorescent bladder tissues, and the multivariate statistical analysis for discrimination between nontumor tissue, and low- and high-grade tumor. © 2019 The Authors. Journal of Biophotonics published by WILEY-VCH Verlag GmbH & Co. KGaA, Weinheim