Molecular analysis of the destruction of articular joint tissues by Raman spectroscopy

ABSTRACT

Introduction

Osteoarthritis (OA) is a highly heterogenous disease influenced by different molecular, anatomic, and physiologic imbalances. Some of the bottlenecks for enhanced diagnosis and therapeutic assessment are the lack of validated biomarkers and early diagnosis tools. In this narrative review, we analyze the potential of Raman spectroscopy (RS) as a label-free optical tool for the characterization of articular joint tissues and its application as a diagnosis tool for OA.

Areas covered

Raman spectra produce a unique ‘molecular fingerprint’ providing rotational and vibrational molecular information, allowing the identification and follow-up of molecular changes associated with OA pathological mechanisms. Focusing on multiple joint tissues (cartilage, synovium, bone, tendons, ligaments, and meniscus) and their contribution in disease incidence and progression, this review highlights the current knowledge on the application of RS in the characterization of organic and inorganic molecules present at these tissues and alterations that occur in the onset of OA.

Expert opinion

Vibrational spectroscopy techniques, such as RS, are low cost, rapid and minimally invasive approaches that offer high specificity in the assessment of the molecular composition of complex tissues. Combined with multivariate statistical methods, RS offers great potential for optical biomarkers discovery or disease diagnosis applications, and we hereby discuss clinical translational progresses on the field.

KEYWORDS:

• Optical biomarkers
• osteoarthritis
• Raman spectroscopy
• diagnosis
• joint tissues

Article highlights

• Raman spectroscopy is able to successfully discriminate between healthy and osteoarthritic joint tissues.

• Raman spectra provide detection and monitoring of cartilage molecular alterations at different stages of OA.

• A panel of Raman signals and ratios assigned to cartilage tissue components can be related to specific events that occur during tissue destruction and thus are proposed as OA optical biomarkers.

• RS has high potential as a rapid and economic method for OA early diagnosis.

Declaration of interest

The authors have no other relevant affiliations or financial involvement with any organization or entity with a financial interest in or financial conflict with the subject matter or materials discussed in the manuscript apart from those disclosed.

Reviewer disclosures

Peer reviewers on this manuscript have no relevant financial or other relationships to disclose.

Additional information

Funding

This work was financially supported by Interreg V-A POCTEP Programme through European FEDER funds (0245_IBEROS_1_E) and by the Biomedical Research Network Center (CIBER), an initiative from Instituto de Salud Carlos III (ISCIII).