Metabolic Imaging & Tissue engineering Group News

Dr. S. Banerjee and Prof. D. Papkovsky in collaboration with Tomsk State University (Russia) have published a joint research paper in Sensors and Actuators B journal. The article reports on evaluation of novel O2-sensitive phosphorescent indicator dye (I2-BODIPY) emitting in near infra-red part of electromagnetic spectra and having brightness and photostability comparable with existing state-of-the-art metalloporphyrin-based indicator dyes. This indicator dye has also long emission lifetimes (up to 300 microseconds) and can be exploited in design of novel O2 probes and sensors for biological detection. The full text of the paper can be found here .

Alina Kondrashina has successfully defended her PhD thesis in biochemistry. Alina worked at Biophysics and Bioanalysis lab in period 2011-2014. Her Google Scholar profile can be found here . Congratulations to Alina and her supervisor, Prof. D. Papkovsky!

Prof. D. Papkovsky and Dr. R. Dmitriev attended the Photonics West-2015 conference (section "Bios", 7-12 February 2015, San Francisco) organised by Society for Photo-Optical Instrumentation Engineers (SPIE). This is one of the largest scientific symposia in the areas of photonics/ biophotonics. Both D. Papkovsky and R. Dmitriev have presented talks on the recent developments in the area of nanoparticle-based O2 imaging. More information on conference can be found here . Published conference proceedings are available: Multi-parametric imaging of tumor spheroids with ultra-bright andtunable nanoparticle O2 probes Imaging of oxygenation in 3D tissue models with multi-modalphosphorescent probes

PhD candidate J. Jenkins, Dr. R. Dmitriev, Prof. D. Papkovsky and co-authors published joint research paper describing use of polymeric 3D scaffolds for mammalian cell culture for measurement of localised (pericellular) O2 levels with various cell models including cancer cells, multi-cellular aggregates and cultured brain slices. This method allows for better analysis of cell function and viability and can be combined with various other assays (study of cell differentiation) and pharmacological treatments (hypoxia-specific drugs), when performed on one-photon confocal PLIM microscope. The research is published in Acta Biomaterialia journal and can be found found here .

Dr. A. Zhdanov and Prof. D. Papkovsky have contributed to the book "Mitochondrial medicine" (Series "Methods in molecular biology", Vol. 1265, published by Springer publishing house in 2015). This chapter describes the protocol allowing to analyse cell energy production pathways including glycolysis, Krebs cycle and oxidative phosphorylation, using easy-to-use commercially available phosphorescent pH and O2-sensitive probes. The full text of book chapter can be found here .

Dr. R. Dmitriev and Prof. D. Papkovsky are the authors of the new research article (communication) published in FEBS Letters journal (Dec. 2014). The paper entitled "In vitro ischemia decreases histone H4K16 acetylation in neural cells" reveals that oxygen and glucose deprivation of cultured cells (commonly used model of brain and heart ischemia) leads to transient decrease of acetylation status of histone H4 at residue K16 (H4K16). This epigenetic mark is involved in variety of cellular processes such as general chromatin decompaction or cell cycle arrest, if impaired, and is essential for survival of animal cell. This observation is expected to facilitate future progress in the area of stroke and help to develop better therapies. The full-text can be found here .

Dr. R. Dmitriev and Prof. D. Papkovsky have contributed to the book entitled "Neuronal Cell Death: Methods and Protocols" which is a part of widely known series "Methods in Molecular Biology" and will be published by Springer in early 2015. This book is dedicated to the novel and state-of-the-art cell and molecular biology methods and protocols of analysis of neuronal cell death and neurodegeneration with different biological models - from cells to in vivo. The chapter entitled " Multi-parametric O 2  Imaging in Three-Dimensional Neural Cell Models with the Phosphorescent Probes" describes detailed protocols on multi-parametric live cell imaging of spheroid (neurospheres) and brain slice ex vivo models and allowing to correlate their viability and cell death with oxygenation using high-resolution PLIM microscopy. The text of book chapter can be found here .