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    Toward food analytics: fast estimation of lycopene and β-carotene content in tomatoes based on surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS)
    (Cambridge : Soc., 2016) Radu, Andreea Ioana; Ryabchykov, Oleg; Bocklitz, Thomas Wilhelm; Huebner, Uwe; Weber, Karina; Cialla-May, Dana; Popp, Jürgen
    Carotenoids are molecules that play important roles in both plant development and in the well-being of mammalian organisms. Therefore, various studies have been performed to characterize carotenoids’ properties, distribution in nature and their health benefits upon ingestion. Nevertheless, there is a gap regarding a fast detection of them at the plant phase. Within this contribution we report the results obtained regarding the application of surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) toward the differentiation of two carotenoid molecules (namely, lycopene and β-carotene) in tomato samples. To this end, an e-beam lithography (EBL) SERS-active substrate and a 488 nm excitation source were employed, and a relevant simulated matrix was prepared (by mixing the two carotenoids in defined percentages) and measured. Next, carotenoids were extracted from tomato plants and measured as well. Finally, a combination of principal component analysis and partial least squares regression (PCA-PLSR) was applied to process the data, and the obtained results were compared with HPLC measurements of the same extracts. A good agreement was obtained between the HPLC and the SERS results for most of the tomato samples.
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    Spatially resolved spectroscopic differentiation of hydrophilic and hydrophobic domains on individual insulin amyloid fibrils
    ([London] : Macmillan Publishers Limited, part of Springer Nature, 2016) Deckert-Gaudig, Tanja; Kurouski, Dmitry; Hedegaard, Martin A. B.; Singh, Pushkar; Lednev, Igor K.; Deckert, Volker
    The formation of insoluble β-sheet-rich protein structures known as amyloid fibrils is associated with numerous neurodegenerative diseases, such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. A detailed understanding of the molecular structure of the fibril surface is of interest as the first contact with the physiological environment in vivo and plays a decisive role in biological activity and associated toxicity. Recent studies reveal that the inherent sensitivity and specificity of tip-enhanced Raman scattering (TERS) renders this technique a compelling method for fibril surface analysis at the single-particle level. Here, the reproducibility of TERS is demonstrated, indicating its relevance for detecting molecular variations. Consequently, individual fibrils are systematically investigated at nanometer spatial resolution. Spectral parameters were obtained by band-fitting, particularly focusing on the identification of the secondary structure via the amide III band and the differentiation of hydrophobic and hydrophilic domains on the surface. In addition multivariate data analysis, specifically the N-FINDR procedure, was employed to generate structure-specific maps. The ability of TERS to localize specific structural domains on fibril surfaces shows promise to the development of new fibril dissection strategies and can be generally applied to any (bio)chemical surface when structural variations at the nanometer level are of interest.