PRESSURE-TUNING FOURIER-TRANSFORM INFRARED SPECTROSCOPIC STUDY OF CARCINOGENESIS IN HUMAN ENDOMETRIUM

Fourier-transform infrared spectra were obtained from the endometrial tissues from 17 females. Thirteen of them had grade I (well differenti ated) endometrial adenocarcinoma and four of them had grade III (poorl y differentiated) adenocarcinoma. The infrared spectra of the correspo nding normal tissues obtained from 1-3 cm away from the tumor were als o measured. The spectra of all the normal tissues were essentially ide ntical and differed from those obtained from both the grade I and grad e III adenocarcinomas. In order to determine the structural changes at the molecular level, infrared spectra and their pressure dependences of the exfoliated epithelial cells from the normal and grade III adeno carcinoma tissues of the endometrium were studied. Changes in the spec tra of malignant samples were observed in the symmetric and asymmetric stretching bands of the phosphodiester backbones of nucleic acids, th e CH stretching region, the C--O stretching bands of the C--OH groups of carbohydrates and cellular protein residuals, and the pressure depe ndence of the CH2 stretching mode. These spectral changes in the malig nant endometrium are reproducible and are the result of the structural changes involving an increase in the nuclear size, in the number of h ydrogen-bonded phosphodiester groups in DNA, in the intermolecular int eraction and packing in nucleic acids, in the conformational and reori entational disorder in the methylene chains of membrane lipids, change s in the membrane fluidity, as well as a decrease in the methyl-to-met hylene ratio, and in the number of hydrogen-bonded C--OH groups in car bohydrates and protein residuals. It was also found for the first time from the present work that the epithelium in the normal endometrium e xhibits unique structural properties compared with the epithelium of o ther normal human tissues. (C) 1996 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.