A Spectroscopic Approach to Overcome the Barriers of Early Familial Hypercholesterolemia Diagnosis
Abstract
In diagnosing and treating familial hypercholesterolemia (FH) knowing both the good (HDL) and bad (LDL) cholesterol levels is extremely important as it allows a person to reduce the risk of heart disease and stroke. We propose to develop novel optical spectroscopy-based methods to cover the gap in FH diagnosis through use of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS). Our innovation is to use near infrared light (just outside the visible spectrum) and gold nanorods to measure LDL cholesterol more accurately and directly. We hypothesize that SERS spectra interpreted with quantum chemistry calculations and combined with the unique surface chemistry of gold nanorods will enable two critical advances in cholesterol detection for FH and other diseases. To test our hypothesis, we will 1) identify experimentally observable Raman vibrational modes for cholesterol detection and 2) test sensitivity of cholesterol detection in serum and in tissue. Major findings include that time dependent density-functional theory (TDDFT) calculations for the Raman vibrations of cholesterol show the presence of spectral bands of cholesterols tetracyclic rings which provide information on local chemical properties and experimentally, a SERS signal is detectable from surfactant coated nanorods when placed onto skin, which could enable new non-invasive tissue analysis methods for disease diagnosis.
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jan 01, 2023
- Accession Number
- AD1200772
Entities
People
- Carly S Filgueira
Organizations
- Houston Methodist Research Institute