Year: 2022
Type: dissertation
Abstract: In the last years, with the increase in the average life expectancy, world’s population is progressively aging, which entails social, health and economic problems. In this sense, the need to better understand the physiology of the aging process becomes an urgent need. Since the study of aging in humans is challenging, animal and cellular models are a widely used alternative, namely human fibroblasts. Omics have emerged in the study of aging, specifically metabolomics, with the aim of discovering biomarkers of aging, which might help to uncomplicate this complex process. ATR-FTIR is a simple, cheap, and fast technique that does not require much sample processing or sample quantity, allowing to simultaneously analyse several groups of biomolecules, including lipids, proteins, nucleic acids and carbohydrates. This study aimed to analyse and compare the spectroscopic profile of human dermal fibroblasts of 22, 49 and 69 years old donors, using ATR-FTIR spectroscopy, in order to identify metabolomic changes and biomarkers of human physiological aging. Firstly, ICC was performed using antibodies against lamin B1 and lamin A/C, in order to evaluate the senescence grade of the fibroblasts in study. Results showed that with age, these two biomarkers of senescence decreased, indicating that the grade of senescence increased with age. Then, ATR-FTIR spectroscopy was performed in the three cell lines, to establish the spectroscopic profiles of these fibroblasts. Results showed a very high correlation between the spectroscopic profiles and the age of donors, corroborating the relevance of using these cellular models for physiological aging study. Besides that, it was shown that with age, there was decrease in acyl chain length, an increase in antiparallel β-sheets, and a decrease in intermolecular β-sheets and fibril formation. Altogether, these results stand out the relevance of FTIR spectroscopy, showing that this is a very promising technique in the study of physiological aging and in the identification of new biomarkers.
Author: Martins, Cláudia Isabel Santos
Language: English
Subfield: Biophysics
Domain: Life Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W7134878792