Ramakrishnan Nagarajan, Xia Yang
Infrared Group, Defence Laboratory, Jodhpur-342 011, India.
Department of Physics and Center for Biomedical Research, Oakland University, Rochester, MI 48309, USA.
Trends Appl Spectrosc. 2013;10:1-23.
Fourier transform infrared spectroscopy (FTIR) has the potential to mark up the chemical changes of the materials, as almost all the materials contain their signatures in infrared region. Spectroscopy combined with spatial resolution enables the possibility of characterizing samples up to microscopic level. The emerging development of instrumentation to provide spatial information for infrared (IR) spectroscopy, termed as IR microscopy, provides an opening for newer applications in terms of image analysis, novel data processing tools, etc. Characterization of biomaterials using IR spectroscopy has a trace back to 1950s. The advent of FTIR with imaging capability made characterization possible in cartilage tissue and other biological systems. Extensive analysis of chemical constituents of cartilage and tendon, collagen orientation and polarization property of cartilage using FTIR imaging (FTIRI) has been actively explored during the last two decades. Also, studies using specialized instrumentations like synchrotron FTIR imaging have been attempted to understand the characteristics of biological samples like cartilage. This review covers most of those investigations on cartilage with FTIRI to characterize the same in terms of component characteristics and quantification, collagen orientation, zonal boundary determination, influence of mechanical compression on tissue nature and its correlation to other techniques in last 20 years.
傅里叶变换红外光谱（FTIR）有潜力标记材料的化学变化，因为几乎所有材料在红外区域都有其特征信号。光谱学与空间分辨率相结合，使得在微观层面表征样品成为可能。能够为红外（IR）光谱提供空间信息的仪器的新发展，即红外显微镜，为图像分析、新型数据处理工具等方面的新应用提供了契机。利用红外光谱对生物材料进行表征可追溯到20世纪50年代。具有成像能力的傅里叶变换红外光谱的出现，使得在软骨组织和其他生物系统中进行表征成为可能。在过去二十年中，人们积极探索利用傅里叶变换红外光谱成像（FTIRI）对软骨和肌腱的化学成分、软骨的胶原蛋白取向和偏振特性进行广泛分析。此外，还尝试使用同步加速器傅里叶变换红外光谱成像等专业仪器来了解软骨等生物样品的特性。这篇综述涵盖了过去20年中大多数利用FTIRI对软骨进行的研究，以便从成分特征和定量、胶原蛋白取向、区域边界确定、机械压缩对组织性质的影响及其与其他技术的相关性等方面对软骨进行表征。
