TJ0113-induced mitophagy in acute liver failure detected by Raman microspectroscopy

Impaired mitophagy underlies the pathophysiology of acute liver failure (ALF) and is closely associated with tissue damage and dysfunction. A novel mitophagy inducer, TJ0113, was used for treatment during ALF pathogenesis. In this study, we used a novel mitophagy inducer, TJ0113, to investigate the effects and mechanisms of TAA-induced ALF mice. The results showed that TJ0113 could enhance mitophagy through Parkin/PINK1 and ATG5 pathways, which in turn attenuated mitochondrial damage, hepatocyte apoptosis, nuclear factor (NF)-κB/NLRP3 signaling activation and inflammatory responses after TAA. Metabolomics results showed that TJ0113 mainly regulated lipid metabolism, amino acid metabolism and nucleotide metabolism in the livers of ALF mice. RNA sequencing (RNA-seq) analysis yielded that TJ0113 was involved in the development of ALF by regulating the P13K/AKT signaling pathway. The key highlight of this work is the use of an aberration-free line-scanning confocal Raman imager (AFLSCRI) to study the molecular changes in blood, liver tissue, gastrocnemius muscle, and mitochondrial extracts in ALF mice after TJ0113 treatment. Compared to the measurement with conventional assays, Raman microspectroscopy (micro-Raman) offers the benefits of being rapid, non-invasive, label-free and real-time. Our results found good agreement between Raman signals and histopathologic findings. The system has good performance with a spatial resolution of 2 μm, a spectral resolution of 4 cm^-1 and a fast detection speed improved by 2 orders. Innovations in this test contribute to clinical diagnosis of disease, personalized treatment, effective intraoperative guidance and accurate prognosis. The data may help in the development of a non-invasive clinical device for mitochondrial damage using bedside micro-Raman.