Pressure-tuning fourier transform infrared spectroscopic study of carcinogenesis in human endometrium

Abstract

Fourier-transform infrared spectra were obtained from the endometrial tissues from 17 females. Thirteen of them had grade I (well differentiated) endometrial adenocarcinoma and four of them had grade III (poorly differentiated) adenocarcinoma. The infrared spectra of the corresponding normal tissues obtained from 1–3 cm away from the tumor were also measured. The spectra of all the normal tissues were essentially identical and differed from those obtained from both the grade I and grade III adenocarcinomas. In order to determine the structural changes at the molecular level, infrared spectra and their pressure dependences of the exfoliated epithelial cells from the normal and grade III adenocarcinoma tissues of the endometrium were studied. Changes in the spectra of malignant samples were observed in the symmetric and asymmetric stretching bands of the phosphodiester backbones of nucleic acids, the CH stretching region, the C(SINGLE BOND)O stretching bands of the C(SINGLE BOND)OH groups of carbohydrates and cellular protein residuals, and the pressure dependence of the CH2 stretching mode. These spectral changes in the malignant endometrium are reproducible and are the result of the structural changes involving an increase in the nuclear size, in the number of hydrogen-bonded phosphodiester groups in DNA, in the intermolecular interaction and packing in nucleic acids, in the conformational and reorientational disorder in the methylene chains of membrane lipids, changes in the membrane fluidity, as well as a decrease in the methyl-to-methylene ratio, and in the number of hydrogen-bonded C(SINGLE BOND)OH groups in carbohydrates and protein residuals. It was also found for the first time from the present work that the epithelium in the normal endometrium exhibits unique structural properties compared with the epithelium of other normal human tissues. © 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.