Chemical Distributions of Paraffin-embedded Hemangioma Tissues Using FTIR
Microspectroscopy
Mao-Feng Weng (翁茂峯)1, Yao-Chang Lee (李耀昌)2, and Su-Yu Chiang (江素玉)2
1
2
National Synchrotron Radiation Research Center, Hsinchu, Taiwan
Department of Applied Chemistry, National Chiao Tung University, Hsinchu, Taiwan
The infrared spectral images of three paraffin-embedded hemangioma tissues at different
damaged stages were measured with a confocal Fourier transform infrared microspectrometer.
Distributions of proteins, phosphates of nucleotides, and protein-to-nucleotide ratios were obtained
from the areas of amide I and anti-symmetric PO2- stretching bands. Great protein-to-nucleotide
ratios observed in the malfunction region are mainly due to small phosphate signals that might
reflect defects of nucleotides in nuclei. With detailed analysis of the spectral features of these two
bands, we also obtained the protein-to-nucleotide ratios of 3.87.5 in the region of strong phosphate
signals and the contents of protein secondary structures  -helix, parallel -sheets, antiparallel
-sheets, random coils, and turns-and-bends  0.28±0.02, 0.15±0.02, 0.13±0.01, 0.14±0.02 and
0.31±0.02 in the two less damaged tissues. The variances in the contents of secondary structures are
negligible compared with the decrease of phosphate signals. In contrast, there is a great variation in
the secondary structure in the severely damaged tissue in addition to lack of phosphate signals. Our
results demonstrate a diagnostic approach with FTIR microspectroscopy in characterization and
chemical analysis of hemangioma tissues, particularly in the phosphate signals of nucleotides.