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    In vivo measurement of the tissue oxygenation by time-resolved luminescence spectroscopy of protoporphyrin IX: Strategies to minimize artefacts associated with photoproducts

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    The determination of the oxygen partial pressure (pO(2)) in real time in living biological tissues is of high interest for numerous therapeutics, including photodynamic therapy (PDT) and radiotherapy. The minimally invasive and real-time measurement of the pO(2) also enables to obtain interesting fundamental information regarding the metabolic activities in cells and tissues. The development of time-resolved luminescence measurement (TRLM) methods combined with the availability of new oxygen-sensitive molecular probes is at the origin of the significant progress that have been achieved during these past decades to measure the pO(2) in living organisms. These probes include porphyrins, such as aminolevulinic acid-induced protoporphyrin IX (PPIX), which is an approved photosensitizer. Using the photosensitizer to probe the pO(2) is of high interest in PDT since the level of oxygen is measured at the precise location where the phototoxic mechanisms take place. However, PPIX has drawbacks to measure the pO(2) by TRLM, including its significant photobleaching. Since the PPIX excitation during pO(2) measurements leads to the generation of its photoproducts, we studied the impact of their luminescence on the measurement of the PPIX triplet state lifetime in solution and in vivo on the Chick's Chorioallantoic Membrane (CAM) model. We performed this study under various oxygen conditions. Our results indicate that perturbations induced by these photoproducts can be avoided if the PPIX luminescence is detected between 620 and 640 nm, or if PPIX is excited at 405 nm with light doses < 1 J/cm(2).GP

    Modulation of the endogenous production of protoporphyrin IX in a yeast - based model organism

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    The main aim of this study was to assess conditions at which simple yeast-based model organism produces maximal levels of protoporphyrin IX (PpIX) after an exogenous administration of its precursor, 5-aminolevulinic acid (ALA), and the ferrous-ion chelator 2,2'-bipyridyl. We observed that the fluorescing porphyrin, produced after these administrations, was likely to be PpIX since fluorescence spectroscopy of the porphyrins produced endogenously in yeast cells resembles that of PpIX in DMSO and in vivo in the chick's chorioallantoic membrane model. Also, fluorescence lifetimes of these porphyrins are very similar to that of PpIX in vitro and in vivo. This suggests that PpIX is the main fluorescent compound produced by yeast in our conditions. We found that the conditions at which yeast produces the maximal PpIX were a synchronous administration of 5 mu M ALA and 1 mM 2,2'-bipyridyl for yeast incubated in aqueous glucose and 1 mM 2,2'-bipyridyl in the presence of YPD medium. Such a simple model is of high interest to study basic mechanisms involved in the mitochondrial respiration since PpIX, which is produced in this organelle, can be used as an oxygen sensor, or to perform photodynamic therapy and photodiagnosis. Since the absorption and scattering coefficients of this model are much smaller than those of soft tissues over the visible part of the spectrum, a version of this model loaded with appropriated amounts of light absorbing and scattering particles could be designed as a phantom to mimic tumors containing PpIX, a useful tool to optimize certain cancer photodetection set-ups.GP

    Going Beyond Counting First Authors in Author Co-citation Analysis

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    The present study examines one of the fundamental aspects of author co-citation analysis (ACA) - the way co-citation counts are defined. Co-citation counting provides the data on which all subsequent statistical analyses and mappings are based, and we compare ACA results based on two different types of co-citation counting - the traditional type that only counts the first one among a cited work's authors on the one hand and a non-traditional type that takes into account the first 5 authors of a cited work on the other hand. Results indicate that the picture produced through this non-traditional author co-citation counting contains more coherent author groups and is therefore considerably clearer. However, this picture represents fewer specialties in the research field being studied than that produced through the traditional first-author co-citation counting when the same number of top-ranked authors is selected and analyzed. Reasons for these effects are discussed
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