Random lasing approach could probe progression of Huntington’s disease
Random lasing approach could probe progression of Huntington’s disease lead image
Researchers lack methods to assess the progression of Huntington’s disease or the effectiveness of treatment. de Armas-Rillo et al. developed a strategy to detect Huntington’s disease that uses random lasing.
They found the mutant form of the protein huntingtin, which aggregates and accumulates in neurons to cause Huntington’s disease, changes the scattering strength of mouse brain tissue. This change in scattering strength of the tissue subtly changes the random lasing signal.
Pairing random lasing with multivariate statistical analysis, the authors were able to differentiate brain tissue of Huntington’s model mice from their healthy littermates. Random lasing also distinguished untreated Huntington’s model mice from Huntington’s model mice treated with pramipexole, which helps lower the amount of mutant huntingtin in cells. The scattering strength of Huntington’s mice brain tissue treated with pramipexole became a little more like that of healthy mice brain tissue.
These results suggest the potential of random lasing as a sensing tool for Huntington’s disease and potentially other neurogenerative diseases that are also characterized by the accumulation of mutant proteins.
“We expect that this letter will encourage researchers working with random lasers as sensing tools to analyze their signals using similar statistical approaches, whenever possible,” said author Sergio de Armas-Rillo. “On the other hand, given the limited availability of appropriate biomarkers to assess Huntington’s disease progression and response to treatment, this letter puts a new strategy on the table, which of course needs further work.”
The authors are currently searching for a more biocompatible lasing dye to use with this approach and attempting to reproduce these results in other tissues.
Source: “Random lasing as a sensing tool in brain samples of an animal model of Huntington’s disease,” by Sergio de Armas-Rillo, Felipe Fumagallo-Reading, Diego Luis-Ravelo, Beatriz AbdulJalbar, Tomás González-Hernández, and Fernando Lahoz, Applied Physics Letters (2022). The article can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.1063/5.0114115 .
