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Effect of vitamin C on
collagen biosynthesis and degree of birefringence in
polarization sensitive optical coherence tomography (PS-OCT)
S. R. Sharma1,
R. Poddar1, P. Sen2, and J. T. Andrews1,3*
1Applied
Optics Laboratory, Department of Applied Physics, Birla
Institute of Technology, Mesra, Ranchi 835 215 India.
2Department
of Physics, Devi Ahilya University, Khandwa Road, Indore 452
001, India.
3Department
of Applied Physics, SGS Institute of Technology & Science,
Indore - 452003 India.
*Corresponding author: E-mail:
jtandrews@sgsits.ac.in, Phone: +91 731 2434095 (O). Fax:
+91 731 2432540.
Accepted
13 August, 2007 |
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Nearly one third of protein in the body consists of collagen.
It plays a key role in providing the structural scaffolding
for cells, tissues, and organs. With available literature,
we show that prolonged exposure of cultures of human
connective-tissue cells to ascorbate (vitamin C) induces an
eight-fold increase in the synthesis of collagen with no
increase in the rate of synthesis of other proteins. Making
advantage of increased degree of polarization due to
enhanced rate of collagen biosynthesis in the presence of
vitamin C, we propose a better imaging modality for
diagnosing thermal damage in human tissues.
Key
words:
Collagen, vitamin C, triple helix, birefringence, optical
coherence tomography. |
