Towards an early diagnostic for Alzheimer's disease through multimodal spectroscopic evaluation of buccal cells

The genome is organized non-randomly, in a tissue- and development-specific manner. Structural and molecular changes within the chromatin and interchromatin regions and alterations of cytoplasm organelles may be identified in buccal cells (cheek swabs) from patients at different stages of Alzheimer Disease (Mathur et al. 2014; Garcia et al. 2017). Here, we present multimodal fluorescent- and optical- photothermal IR (O-PTIR) spectrochemical imaging of mammalian cells, correlated with conventional and superresolution fluorescence imaging of the same cells following staining. Infrared and Raman spectra provide complementary molecular fingerprint information that can facilitate the identification of spectroscopically relevant clinical biomarkers. Our goal is to develop a method that is not only feasible but will be clinically relevant for a simple, safe, non-invasive, inexpensive, objective measure for staging Alzheimer Disease that will save healthcare costs and optimize patient treatment strategies.