Label-free fibre optic Raman spectroscopy with bounded simplex-structured matrix factorization for the serial study of serum in amyotrophic lateral sclerosis.

Abstract	Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is an incurable neurodegenerative disease in urgent need of disease biomarkers for the assessment of promising therapeutic candidates in clinical trials. Raman spectroscopy is an attractive technique for identifying disease related molecular changes due to its simplicity. Here, we describe a fibre optic fluid cell for undertaking spontaneous Raman spectroscopy studies of human biofluids that is suitable for use away from a standard laboratory setting. Using this system, we examined serum obtained from patients with ALS at their first presentation to our centre (n = 66) and 4 months later (n = 27). We analysed Raman spectra using bounded simplex-structured matrix factorization (BSSMF), a generalisation of non-negative matrix factorisation which uses the distribution of the original data to limit the factorisation modes (spectral patterns). Biomarkers associated with ALS disease such as measures of symptom severity, respiratory function and inflammatory/immune pathways (C3/C-reactive protein) correlated with baseline Raman modes. Between visit spectral changes were highly significant (p = 0.0002) and were related to protein structure. Comparison of Raman data with established ALS biomarkers as a trial outcome measure demonstrated a reduction in required sample size with BSSMF Raman. Our portable, simple to use fibre optic system allied to BSSMF shows promise in the quantification of disease-related changes in ALS over short timescales.
Authors	James J P Alix, Nick S Verber, Chlöe N Schooling, Visakan Kadirkamanathan, Martin R Turner, Andrea Malaspina, John C C Day, Pamela J Shaw
Journal	The Analyst (Analyst) Vol. 147 Issue 22 Pg. 5113-5120 (Nov 07 2022) ISSN: 1364-5528 [Electronic] England
PMID	36222101 (Publication Type: Journal Article)
Chemical References	Biomarkers C-Reactive Protein
Topics	Humans Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (diagnosis, metabolism) Spectrum Analysis, Raman Neurodegenerative Diseases Biomarkers C-Reactive Protein

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