Ines Delfino

• University of Tuscia

1. The measurement process has a well-known structure and requires tools with proper characteristics, depending on the physical quantities and their magnitude. 2. While most fields of research have reliable tools to support the experiments, this is not properly the case for measurements in the population dynamics of insects and animals, more in g...

X-ray radiation treatments are largely adopted in radiotherapy, and Fourier-transform infrared microspectroscopy (μ-FTIR) has already been demonstrated to be a useful instrument for monitoring radiotherapy effects. Previous works in this field have focused on studying the changes occurring in cells when they are fixed immediately after the irradiat...

In recent years, the femtosecond laser ablation of hard dental tissues has stimulated great interest in preparing accurate and reproducible dental cavities. Many studies on the changes induced in the surface morphology, structure, and composition of human teeth have been performed using various advanced experimental techniques. Vibrational spectros...

Phenolic compounds (PheCs) are particularly relevant in many different frameworks due to their pro-oxidant and antioxidant activities. In fact, on the one hand, they are considered very dangerous pro-oxidant agents that can be present in the environment as pollutants in wastewater and soil from different industrial and agricultural industries. On t...

Decision support systems are gaining importance in several fields of agriculture, forest, and ecological systems management. Their predictive potential, entrusted to mathematical models, is of fundamental importance to set up opportune strategies to control pests and adversities that may occur and that may seriously compromise the natural equilibri...

Neuroblastoma is the most recurring cancer in childhood and adolescence. The SH-SY5Y neuroblastoma cell line is generally adopted for elaborating new therapeutical approaches and/or elaborating strategies for the prevention of central nervous system disturbances. In fact, it represents a valid model system for investigating in vitro the effects on...

Background: The use of ionizing radiations in radiotherapy is an effective and very common cancer treatment after surgery. Although ionizing-radiation DNA damages are extensively investigated, little is known about their effects on the other nuclear components, since their variations when studied in whole cells can be difficult to decouple from th...

Laccase is an enzyme belonging to the oxidoreductase class and has copper atoms in the catalytic centre. The catalytic property of this enzyme consists of the enzymatic oxidation of the phenolic compounds, in the corresponding quinones, with the concomitant reduction of molecular oxygen to water. There is growing interest in developing innovative s...

Optical methods are non-invasive tools, and their use in various fields, including sensing applications, is continuously increasing, which is thanks to the continuous development of innovative low-cost sources and detectors. [...]

Fourier transform infrared microspectroscopy using a synchrotron radiation source (SR-μFTIR) has great potential in the study of the ionizing radiation effects of human cells by analyzing the biochemical changes occurring in cell components. SR-μFTIR spectroscopy has been usefully employed in recent years in some seminal work devoted to shedding li...

DNA owes its remarkable photostability to its building blocks—the nucleosides—that efficiently dissipate the energy acquired upon ultraviolet light absorption. The mechanism occurring on a sub-picosecond time scale has been a matter of intense debate. Here we combine sub-30-fs transient absorption spectroscopy experiments with broad spectral covera...

Phenolic compounds are particularly dangerous due to their ability to remain in the environment for a long period of time and their toxic effects. They enter in the environment in different ways, such as waste from paper manufacturing, agriculture (pesticides, insecticides, herbicides), pharmaceuticals, the petrochemical industry, and coal processi...

Lignin nanoparticles (LNPs) are applied in several industrial applications. The nanoprecipitation of LNPs is fast and inexpensive but currently still limited to the use of hazardous organic solvents, making it difficult to apply them on a large scale. Here, we report a scalable nanoprecipitation procedure for the preparation of colloidal lignin nan...

Optical vibrational techniques show a high potentiality in many biomedical fields for their characteristics of high sensitivity in revealing detailed information on composition, structure, and molecular interaction with reduced analysis time. In the last years, we have used these techniques for investigating gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) and peri...

Fourier transform infrared micro-spectroscopy (μ-FT-IR) is nowadays considered a valuable tool for investigating the changes occurring in human cells after exposure to ionizing radiation. Recently, considerable attention has been devoted to the use of this optical technique in the study of cells exposed to proton beams, that are being increasingly...

Significance: A noninvasive method based on surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) of tears was proposed as a support for diagnosing neurodegenerative pathologies, including different forms of dementia and Alzheimer's disease (AD). In this field, timely and reliable discrimination and diagnosis are critical aspects for choosing a valid medical...

Intralipid is a material widely employed for the preparation of phantoms for optical imaging and biophotonics applications in medical field. The development of new optical diagnostic equipment in these fields requires the use of well-designed phantoms with optical properties (including scattering and absorption) mimicking those of biological tissue...

Fourier-Transform Infrared microspectroscopy (μFT-IR) has been usefully applied in the analysis of the complex biological processes occurring during X-ray radiation-cell interaction. Different experimental approaches are available for FT-IR spectra collection (transmission, attenuated total reflection (ATR), and transflection modes) from cells samp...

Previous works showed that spatially resolved Raman spectra of cytoplasm and nucleus region of single cells exposed to X-rays evidence different features. The present work aims to introduce a new approach to profit from these differences to deeper investigate X-ray irradiation effects on single SH-SY5Y human neuroblastoma cells. For this aim, Raman...

Optical properties of flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) moiety are widely used nowadays for biotechnological applications. Given the fundamental role played by FAD, additional structural information about this enzymatic cofactor can be extremely useful in order to obtain a greater insight into its functional role in proteins. For this purpose, we h...

The ability to measure mechanical response of cells under applied load is essential for developing more accurate models of cell mechanics and mechanotransduction. Living cells have been mechanically investigated by several approaches. Among them, atomic force microscopy (AFM) is widely used thanks to its high versatility and sensitivity. In the cas...

Olive oil is a major fat source of the Mediterranean diet. For its unique functional and technological properties, olive oil is highly appreciated all over the world. Very sensitive techniques are currently required to determine chemical composition, to evaluate olive oil authenticity and to quantify vegetable adulterants or degradation compounds....

Olive oil is the main fat source of the Mediterranean diet. This seasoning ingredient is highly appreciated for its unique taste, functional properties, and positive impact on human health. The determination of chemical composition is a demanding task in order to fully characterize this precious food product, ensure its quality, and prevent fraudul...

By combining transient absorption spectroscopy with sub-20-fs UV pulses and ab initio numerical simulations we follow the ultrafast dynamics in pyrimidine nucleosides and visualize the passage through conical intersections presiding excited state deactivation.

Raman micro-spectroscopy was performed in vitro on nuclear and membrane regions of single SH-SY5Y human neuroblastoma cells after irradiation by graded X-ray doses (2, 4, 6, 8 Gy). The acquired spectra were analyzed by principal component analysis (PCA) and interval-PCA (i-PCA) methods. Biochemical changes occurring in the different regions of sing...

Graphene provides a unique way of sensing the local pH level of substances on the micrometric scale, with important implications for the monitoring of cellular metabolic activities where proton excretion could occur. Accordingly, an innovative biosensing approach for the quantification of the pH value of biological fluids, to be used also with smal...

Sustainable catalysts for the oxidation of phenol derivatives under environmentally friendly conditions were prepared by the functionalization of lignin nanoparticles with tyrosinase. Lignin, the most abundant polyphenol in nature, is the main byproduct in the pulp and paper manufacturing industry and biorefinery. Tyrosinase has been immobilized by...

Gingival crevicular fluid (GCF) is a site-specific exudate in the gingival sulcus. GCF composition changes in response to diseases or mechanical stimuli, such as those occurring during orthodontic treatments. Raman micro spectros copy (μ-RS) and surface-enhanced Raman spectro scopy (SERS)were adopted for a GCF analysis during different initial phas...

In the field of cartilage engineering, continuing efforts have focused on fabricating scaffolds that favor maintenance of the chondrocytic phenotype and matrix formation, in addition to providing a permeable, hydrated, microporous structure and mechanical support. The potential of hyaluronan-based hydrogels has been well established, but the ideal...

Optical techniques are increasingly employed for monitoring cell–matrix interactions in suitably prepared 3D scaffolds. The ability of designing and realizing synthetic extracellular matrix with well-controlled optical properties is a crucial need in this field. For this purpose a crosslinked hyaluronic acid (HA) scaffold is prepared. Fourier trans...

Surface-Enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) enables the investigation of samples with weak specific Raman signals, such as opaque samples, including fruit juices and pulp. In this paper, biological apple juices and apple/pear pulp have been studied in order to evidence the presence of fructose and pectin, which are components of great relevance for...

Optical properties of flavin adenine dinucleotide moiety are nowadays widely used for biotechnological applications. In particular when flavin adenine dinucleotide is bound to glucose oxidase it is employed for developing optical biosensors for glucose concentration monitoring. In order to design such systems it can be extremely useful to have a de...

Reliable and cost-effective assays with adequate sensitivity are required to detect the DNA methylation profile in plants for scientific and industrial purposes. The proposed novel assay, named EpiHRMAssay, allows to quantify the overall methyla-tion status at target loci and to enable high-throughput analyses. It combines in tube High Resolution M...

Surface-enhanced Raman Spectroscopy (SERS) is a vibrational spectroscopy holding potentials for a rapid evaluation of quality and composition of food industry products without any need of sample preparation. Among many nanomaterials, gold nanoparticles (GNPs) and their colloidal dispersions have attracted great interest for SERS applications due to...

The role of mechanics in numerous biological processes is nowadays recognized, while in others, such as the fertilization process, it is still neglected. In the case of oocytes the description of their mechanical properties could improve the comprehension of the oocyte-spermatozoon interaction and be helpful for application in in vitro fertilizatio...

Abstract We have used femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy (FPPS) to study the FeMo-cofactor within the nitrogenase (N2ase) MoFe protein from Azotobacter vinelandii. A sub-20-fs visible laser pulse was used to pump the sample to an excited electronic state, and a second sub-10-fs pulse was used to probe changes in transmission as a function of probe...

Optical techniques are increasingly employed for monitoring cell-matrix interactions and the availability of 3D scaffolds with controlled optical properties can be extremely useful in this field. Hyaluronic acid (HA) is a glycosaminoglycan found in extracellular tissue in many parts of the body which is becoming more and more popular in biomaterial...

Femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy was used to investigate the excited state dynamics of the T1 copper site of laccase from Pleurotus ostreatus, by exciting its 600nm charge transfer band with a 15-fs pulse and probing over a broad range in the visible region. The decay of the pump-induced ground-state bleaching occurs in a single step and is modu...

A micro-Raman spectroscopy investigation has been performed in vitro on single human mammary epithelial cells after irradiation by graded X-ray doses. The analysis by principal component analysis (PCA) and interval-PCA (i-PCA) methods has allowed us to point out the small differences in the Raman spectra induced by irradiation. This experimental ap...

A micro-Raman spectroscopy investigation has been performed in vitro on single human mammary epithelial cells after irradiation by graded x-ray doses. The analysis by principal component analysis (PCA) and interval-PCA (i-PCA) methods has allowed us to point out the small differences in the Raman spectra induced by irradiation. This experimental ap...

Immobilization procedures are a fundamental step in the technological use of enzymes. Among the different immobilization procedures sol–gel technique is widely recognised as a valuable approach to obtain very high quality catalytic supports. In this paper different optical techniques have been used and compared to investigate structural and dynamic...

Gold nanoparticles (GNPs) are very attractive materials due to their unique properties of small size, large surface area to volume ratio, high reactivity to the living cells, stability over high temperatures. These properties along with the evidence that GNPs are amenable to the attachment of biomolecules or ligands through well-known thiol and ami...

Univariate and multivariate analysis methods have been used for discriminating Raman spectra and determining glucose concentration in glucose aqueous solutions, sweetener mixtures and various commercial sport drinks from Raman spectra in the 600-1,600 cm-1 spectral region. They show well defined and separated vibrational fingerprints of the various...

A Micro-Raman spectroscopy investigation has been performed on human mammary epithelial cells after irradiation by different X-ray doses. The analysis by interval-Principal Component Analysis (iPCA) has allowed us to outline the subtle differences in the Raman spectra induced by irradiation. In particular, this experimental approach has enabled to...

An optical model for Raman response of thin metal films has been developed, taking into account attenuation effects and multi-reflections occurring at film edges. Film thickness and surface morphology of nanometer thin NbN films have been inferred in the framework of this model using micro-Raman measurements. Results have been compared with those o...

Time-resolved fluorescence experiments have shown that flavin adenine dinucleotide (FAD) fluorescence emission of sol-gel immobilized glucose oxidase (GOD) exhibits a three-exponential decaying behaviour characterized by long- (about 2.0-3.0 ns), intermediate- (about 300 ps) and short- (less than 10 ps) lifetime, each one being characteristic of a...

Dynamic and Static Light Scattering (DLS and SLS), Resonance Light Scattering (RLS) and angular-ratiometric methods have been used for investigating the aggregation of biotinylated bovine serum albumin gold nanoparticles induced by the interaction of biotin with its partner neutravidin. All the approaches have shown to be sensitive to the presence...

To study immobilized protein interactions with dissolved substrates is a very important topic both from a fundamental and technological standpoint. In the present report we illustrate the preliminary results obtained on sol-gel immobilized glucose oxidase (GOD) using a standard de-scanned two-photon microscope based on a modified confocal scanhead...

Glucose oxidase (GOD) immobilized into sol–gel matrices was studied by using Micro-Attenuated Total Reflection Fourier Transform Infrared (micro-ATR FT-IR) spectroscopy in order to characterize enzyme distribution and secondary structure in systems with valuable potentialities in amperometric and optical biosensing. Spectra were acquired in the 400...

Micro-Raman technique can be particularly useful to investigate the chemical changes induced in structure, protein, nucleic acid, lipid, and carbohydrate contents of cells. The aim of this work is to inspect the possibility to employ Raman microspectroscopy to detect biochemical modifications in human mammary epithelial cells after exposure to diff...

Laccases are cuproproteins belonging to the group of oxidoreductases that are able to catalyze the oxidation of various aromatic compounds (particularly phenols) with the concomitant reduction of oxygen to water. They are characterized by low substrate specificity and have a catalytic competence which widely varies depending on the source. Addition...

Laser sources are nowadays largely adopted in medicine and hence they are widespread in medical environment, where patients are present and the users are not always highly specialized in managing laser sources. This has greatly boosted the attention towards safety issues related to exposure to laser beams and to strictly assess the values of well d...

Micro-Raman spectroscopy is a very promising tool for medical applications, thanks to its sensitivity to subtle changes in the chemical and structural characteristics of biological specimens. To fully exploit these promises, building a method of data analysis properly suited for the case under study is crucial. Here, a linear or univariate approach...

The potential of Raman spectroscopy with excitation in the visible as a tool for quantitative determination of single components in food industry products was investigated by focusing the attention on glucose content in commercial sport drinks. At this aim, micro-Raman spectra in the 600-1600cm(-1) wavenumber shift region of four sport drinks were...

Micro-Raman spectroscopy and interval Partial Least Square (iPLS) multivariate analysis have been used for determining glucose concentration in various commercial sport drinks. By employing a visible excitation light (633 nm), micro- Raman spectra in the 600-1600 cm -1 wavenumber shift region have been recorded, showing well defined and separated v...

Raman spectroscopy is continuously confirming its potentials as a powerful tool in medical diagnosis, also thanks to multivariate analysis for extracting quantitative information from the noisy and spectrally-reach Raman spectra usually obtained from biological tissues and humors1. Unfortunately, multivariate analysis methods require very large amo...

Pump it upl The FeMo cofactor (see picture) has resisted characterization by resonance Raman spectroscopy. Impulsive coherent vibrational spectroscopy may be an alternative probe of its dynamics. A 15 fs visible laser pulse pumped the sample to an excited electronic state, and a second < 10 fs pulse probed the change in transmission as a function o...

An "in vitro" study of Raman spectra from oral human tissues is reported in order to the develop a diagnostic method suitable for "in vivo" oral pathology follow-up. The investigated pathology is Pemphigus Vulgaris (PV) for which new techniques for guiding and monitoring therapy would be particularly useful. Raman spectra were obtained in the waven...

We report on the results of a micro-Raman spectroscopy study on tissue and blood serum samples from ill, recovered and under therapy Pemphigus Vulgaris patients. To obtain reliable information on the patient illness stage wavelet techniques and advanced multivariate analysis methods have been developed and applied to the spectra analysis. Promising...

The hybrid system obtained by conjugating the protein azurin, which is a very stable and well-described protein showing a unique interplay among its electron transfer and optical properties, with 20-nm sized gold nanoparticles has been investigated. Binding of azurin molecules to gold nanoparticle surface results in the red shift of the nanoparticl...

Conference code: 71760, Cited By (since 1996): 1, Export Date: 8 November 2012, Source: Scopus, Art. No.: 68700P, doi: 10.1117/12.769364, Language of Original Document: English, Correspondence Address: Delfino, I.; Biophysics and Nanoscience Centre, CNISM, Universita della Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy, References: Passos, D., Hebden, J.C., Pinto, P.N., G...

Liquid samples of clarified apple and apricot juices at different production stages were investigated using visible light micro-Raman spectroscopy in order to assess its potential in monitoring fruit juice production. As is well-known, pectin plays a strategic role in the production of clarified juice and the possibility of using Raman for its dete...

Various aspects of redox protein integration with nano-electronic elements are addressed by a multi-technique investigation of different yeast cytochrome c (YCC)-based hybrid systems. Three different immobilization strategies on gold via organic linkers are explored, involving either covalent bonding or electrostatic interaction. Specifically, Au s...

We have applied femtosecond pump-probe spectroscopy to investigate the excited-state dynamics of umecyanin from horseradish roots, by exciting its 600-nm ligand-to-metal charge-transfer band with a 15-fs pulse and probing over a broad range in the visible region. The decay of the pump-induced ground-state bleaching is modulated by clearly visible o...

A study of cytochrome c from Saccharomyces cerevisiae adsorbed on silver colloids at very low concentration is carried out by surface-enhanced Raman scattering. Spectra acquired at different times exhibit dramatic fluctuations in both line frequency and intensity indicating that single molecule detection is approached. The intensity fluctuations ar...

Pemphigus vulgaris is a chronic, autoimmune, blistering disease of the skin and mucous membranes with a potentially fatal outcome. In this case micro-Raman spectroscopy (mu-RS) can provide a powerful tool for a not invasive analysis of biological tissue for biopsy and in vivo investigation. Based on the evaluation of molecular vibration frequencies...

Umecyanin (UMC) from horseradish root belongs to the stellacyanin subclass of the phytocyanins, a family of plant cupredoxins. The protein possesses the typical type-1 His(2)Cys equatorial ligand set at its mononuclear copper site but has an axial Gln ligand in place of the usual weakly coordinated Met of the plantacyanins, uclacyanins, and most ot...

The behavior of latex particles in carboxymethylcellulose (CMC) solutions with different probe radii and solution concentrations is investigated. The diffusion processes of probe particles are studied by means of dynamic light scattering experiments. The existence of two diffusion regimes (a short-time regime and a long-time regime) is established...

We have performed a detailed analysis for the problem of photon migration through a scattering slab containing a single absorptive inclusion whose absorption coefficient is characterized by a spatially varying Gaussian distribution law. The analysis has been performed within the framework of the first-order perturbation approach to the diffusion th...

We have performed a detailed analysis for the problem of photon migration through a scattering slab containing a single absorptive inclusion whose absorption coefficient is characterized by a spatially varying Gaussian distribution law. The analysis has been performed within the framework of the first-order perturbation approach to the diffusion th...

The giant enhancement of Raman signal near silver colloidal nanoparticles is exploited to study the Raman spectrum of Cytochrome c from Saccharomyces cerevisiae (Yeast Cytochrome c--YCc) in the limit of single-molecule. The investigation is performed on proteins both in solution and immobilised onto a glass slide using a quasi resonant laser line a...

Yeast cytochrome c has been directly self-chemisorbed on bare gold electrodes via its native free sulphur-containing group Cys102. Topological, spectroscopic and electron transfer properties of immobilised molecules have been investigated by in situ scanning probe microscopy and cyclic voltammetry. Atomic force and scanning tunnelling microscopy re...

Time-resolved measurements of ultrashort light pulses transmitted through turbid scattering media have been performed to determine the possibilities and the limitations of a first-order perturbation approach to recover the absorption coefficient of different tissue-like cylindrical absorptive phantoms. The model accounts for the effect of a spatial...

Conference code: 62837, Export Date: 8 November 2012, Source: Scopus, CODEN: PSISD, doi: 10.1117/12.523983, Language of Original Document: English, Correspondence Address: Esposito, R.; Dipartimento Scienze Fisiche, Unità INFM, Complesso Univ. Montesantangelo, via Cintia, 80126 Napoli, Italy; email: rosesp@na.infn.it, References: Chernomordik, V.,...

The possibility of obtaining images of human organs by optical techniques for diagnostic purposes is still under intense investigation. Useful information for devising the most efficient data acquisition procedures and reconstruction algorithms can be obtained by imaging well-controlled small inhomogeneities using different reconstruction procedure...

Many biomedical applications of time-resolved transmittance require precise measurements of optical properties of scattering samples. Recently, random walk theory has been proposed to accurately model the time-resolved transmittance and reflectance across uniform slabs of scattering media as well as slabs containing isolated targets of different sc...

The oxygen content and the local oxygen arrangement of YBa2Cu3O7−x (YBCO) thin films grown on NdGaO3 substrates have been monitored by micro-Raman spectroscopy. The analysis was performed during the heat treatment of the sample in air, with temperatures Ta ranging between 20–300 °C. At Ta < 220 °C, the superconductivity of the samples was preserved...

Many biomedical applications of time-resolved transmittance require precise measurements of optical properties of scattering samples. In this paper the use of time-resolved transmittance for optical characterization of scattering and absorbing media using different analytical solutions to the diffusion equation has been tested. Particular attention...

Well-characterized phantom objects are necessary for investigating the performances of optical imaging systems based on time-resolved transmittance and fluorescence. For this purposes we have prepared inhomogeneous phantoms made of gelatinous objects placed in aqueous solutions of 10% Intralipid with different concentrations. The gelatinous objects...