Photo of the molecular traces of cancer

2001/04/02 Roa Zubia, Guillermo - Elhuyar Zientzia

• Medikuntza
• Kimika

One of the most interesting applications is to follow the traces of cancer. This method allows studying the proteins of the cells that form the tumors. It is important to find an exact location because both inside and outside of tumors are not the same proteins. The tissue or tumor sheet study provides information about growth.

The technique is called "mass spectroscopy to obtain images." It is based on traditional mass spectroscopy. Expert Richard Caprioli has adapted a standard spectroscope to represent the analysis of a sheet shaped sample. For analysis, the sample is frozen and cut into thin sheets. These sheets are introduced to the machine one by one and later, with the graphical results of all analyses, the sample model can be completed in three dimensions. Although the sample is cut by hand, a kind of tomography can be obtained with mass spectroscope.

In the three-dimensional model, the computer can distinguish proteins based on the size of the protein. For the first trials, scientists have analyzed two brain tumors, one attributed to a man and another to a mouse. In this way, as was believed, different proteins have been detected in the internal and external layers of tumors. Superficial tumor proteins, for example, allow tissue invasion.

This work serves to propose proteins to diagnose cancer, since it does not directly seek a certain protein. The technique poses the opposite. In other techniques, the researcher has to know what compounds are sought and often use markers. This, in addition to being a heavy job, is sometimes unsuccessful. By means of the representation technique, without any additives, the scientist can devise one or another diagnostic strategy with only identifying what is there.

The pharmaceutical industry is very interested in acquiring spectroscope. It can be seen where medicines are spread in the body and where they have the greatest influence on tissues. On a molecular scale, it is a technique close to the living observation of biological systems.