In their latest publication in Biosensors and Bioelectronics (IF 11.8), researchers from the Institute of Organic Chemistry, Polish Academy of Sciences, and the group of Prof. Małgorzata Barańska from Jagiellonian University, a member of the Scientific Council of IOC PAS, presented the results of their studies on how cells recognize and process glucose derivatives.
Glucose, the primary source of energy for the body, exists in two anomeric forms, α and β, which remain in equilibrium with each other. The authors synthesized appropriately modified glucose derivatives and subsequently investigated their behavior in vascular endothelial cells using advanced Raman microscopy. They demonstrated that derivatives enriched in the β form induce a characteristic spectroscopic response that was not observed in analogous preparations enriched in the α form. The results indicate that even subtle differences in the spatial structure of molecules may influence their uptake, accumulation, and transformation within cells.
The research combines organic chemistry, spectroscopy, and cell biology, opening up new possibilities for developing non-invasive methods to monitor processes occurring in living cells. In the future, these methods may find applications in studies of metabolic disorders associated with, among others, cancer and cardiovascular diseases.
A. Pieczara, K. Siąkała, S. Buda, R. Pawlowski, J. Mlynarski, H. Noothalapati, M. Baranska , “Anomer-specific Raman biosensing reveals β-selective induction of metabolic signatures at 1130 and 1603 cm−1 in endothelial cells”, Biosensors & Bioelectronics