Raman Microspectroscopy Analysis in the Treatment of Acanthamoeba Keratitis

Giulia Rusciano, Paola Capriglione, Giuseppe Pesce, Salvatore Del Prete, Gilda Cennamo, David Di Cave, Luciano Cerulli and Antonio Sasso

PLOS ONE, 2013, vol. 8, issue 8, 1-8

Abstract: Acanthamoeba keratitis is a rare but serious corneal disease, often observed in contact lens wearers. Clinical treatment of infected patients frequently involves the use of polyhexamethylene biguanide (PHMB), a polymer used as a disinfectant and antiseptic, which is toxic also for the epithelial cells of the cornea. Prompt and effective diagnostic tools are hence highly desiderable for both starting early therapy and timely suspension of the treatment. In this work we use Raman microspectroscopy to analyse in vitro a single Acanthamoeba cell in cystic phase. In particular, we investigate the effect of PHMB at the single-cell level, providing useful information on both the underlying biochemical mechanism and the time frame for Acanthamoeba eradication in ocular infections. Furthermore, we demonstrate that Raman spectroscopy, in conjunction with standard multivariate analysis methods, allows discriminating between live and dead Acanthamoebas, which is fundamental to optimizing patients’ treatment.

Date: 2013
References: View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0072127 (text/html)
https://journals.plos.org/plosone/article/file?id= ... 72127&type=printable (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:plo:pone00:0072127

DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0072127

Access Statistics for this article

More articles in PLOS ONE from Public Library of Science
Bibliographic data for series maintained by plosone ().