Terahertz spectroscopy of misfolded proteins in bio-tissue

Author

Png, Gretel M. ; Flook, Robyn ; Ng, Brian W H ; Abbott, Derek

Author_Institution

Sch. of Electr. & Electron. Eng., Univ. of Adelaide, Adelaide, SA, Australia

fYear

2009

fDate

21-25 Sept. 2009

Firstpage

1

Lastpage

3

Abstract

Proteins in living organisms must fold in order to carry out their biological function. However some proteins misfold to become unwanted deposits. Understanding the causes and mechanics of protein folding is immensely important in the study of diseases which are caused by protein misfolding. This abstract reports on a novel study which uses terahertz (THz) spectroscopy to probe misfolded proteins in excised diseased human brain tissue. Our early results show distinction in the THz absorption spectra, which could be attributed to pathological changes in the diseased tissue.

Keywords

biological techniques; brain; diseases; molecular configurations; proteins; terahertz spectroscopy; THz absorption spectra; bio-tissue; diseased human brain tissue; misfolded protein terahertz spectroscopy; protein folding mechanics; tissue pathological changes; Alzheimer´s disease; Australia; Brain; Humans; In vivo; Magnetic resonance imaging; Neurons; Organisms; Protein engineering; Spectroscopy;

fLanguage

English

Publisher

ieee

Conference_Titel

Infrared, Millimeter, and Terahertz Waves, 2009. IRMMW-THz 2009. 34th International Conference on

Conference_Location

Busan

Print_ISBN

978-1-4244-5416-7

Electronic_ISBN

978-1-4244-5417-4

Type

conf

DOI

10.1109/ICIMW.2009.5325542

Filename

5325542