Integrating Ultra-Weak Photon Emission Analysis in Mitochondrial Research.

Once regarded solely as the energy source of the cell, nowadays mitochondria are recognized to perform multiple essential functions in addition to energy production. Since the discovery of pathogenic mitochondrial DNA defects in the 1980s, research advances have revealed an increasing number of common human diseases, which share an underlying pathogenesis involving mitochondrial dysfunction. A major factor in this dysfunction is reactive oxygen species (ROS), which influence the mitochondrial-nuclear crosstalk and the link with the epigenome, an influence that provides explanations for pathogenic mechanisms.

Integrated assessment of medicinal rhubarb by combination of delayed luminescence and HPLC fingerprint with emphasized on bioactivities based quality control.

Background: To promote herbal medicine depends largely on its quality. Chromatographic fingerprint is a frequent approach for quality assessment of herbs however with challenges on robust and reproducibility. To develop rapid, cheap and comprehensive measurements as complementary tools for herbal quality control are still urgently needed.

Spectral Distribution of Ultra-Weak Photon Emission as a Response to Wounding in Plants: An In Vivo Study.

It is well established that every living organism spontaneously emits photons referred to as ultra-weak photon emission (synonym biophotons or low-level chemiluminescence) which inherently embodies information about the wellbeing of the source. In recent years, efforts have been made to use this feature as a non-invasive diagnostic tool related to the detection of food quality, agriculture and biomedicine. The current study deals with stress resulting from wounding (mechanical injury) on and how it modifies the spontaneous ultra-weak photon emission.

A comparative study of aged and contemporary Chinese herbal materials by using delayed luminescence technique.

Background: Investigation of aged Chinese herbal materials will help us to understand their use and sources in ancient time and broaden the historical perspective of Chinese material medica. To reach this aim, the basic understanding of aged herbal materials, including physical and chemical characters, is of great importance. Delayed luminescence (DL) technique was developed as a rapid, direct, systemic, objective and sample loss-free tool to characterize the properties of Chinese herbal materials.

A Bridge of Light: Toward Chinese and Western Medicine Perspectives Through Ultraweak Photon Emissions.

The gap between Western medicine and traditional Chinese medicine (CM) is closely related to the diversity in culture, philosophy, and scientific developments. Although numerous studies have evaluated the efficacy of acupuncture, the gap in explanatory disease models has not been bridged so far. Developments in research of ultraweak photon emission (UPE) and organized dynamics of metabolism and its relationship with technological advances in metabolomics have created the conditions to bring the basics of the medicines of the West and East together which might open the avenue for a scientific dialogue.

Characterization of ginsenoside extracts by delayed luminescence, high-performance liquid chromatography, and bioactivity tests.

Ginsenoside extracts are often used as raw materials for various pharmaceutical, cosmetic and food supplement products. Development of a direct, rapid, cheap, and comprehensive measurement tool for the quality assessment of ginsenoside extracts, and indeed all herbal extracts, is urgently needed. In addition, a bioactivity-based assessment should be linked with quality control.

Application of delayed luminescence method on measuring of the processing of Chinese herbal materials.

Background: Based on the principle of tradition Chinese medicine, the processing refers to various techniques that alter the overall properties of herbal materials to meet the requirements of therapeutic applications. However, the standards of quality control and scientific standard operation protocol for processing manufacturing are largely unknown and there is a huge demand for the development of scientific tools for evaluating the quality during and after the processing. The key challenge in evidence-based medicine is to characterize the processing of herbal materials from system-based perspective.

Protein Tethering for Folding Studies.

Optical tweezers allow the detection of unfolding and refolding transitions in individual proteins, and how interacting molecules such as chaperones affect these transitions. Typical methods that tether individual proteins are based on cysteine chemistry, which is less suitable for proteins with essential cysteines. Here we describe a cysteine-independent tethering protocol that can be performed in situ.

Spontaneous ultra-weak photon emission in correlation to inflammatory metabolism and oxidative stress in a mouse model of collagen-induced arthritis.

The increasing prevalence of rheumatoid arthritis has driven the development of new approaches and technologies for investigating the pathophysiology of this devastating, chronic disease. From the perspective of systems biology, combining comprehensive personal data such as metabolomics profiling with ultra-weak photon emission (UPE) data may provide key information regarding the complex pathophysiology underlying rheumatoid arthritis. In this article, we integrated UPE with metabolomics-based technologies in order to investigate collagen-induced arthritis, a mouse model of rheumatoid arthritis, at the systems level, and we investigated the biological underpinnings of the complex dataset.

Crossing the Boundaries of Our Current Healthcare System by Integrating Ultra-Weak Photon Emissions with Metabolomics.

The current healthcare system is hampered by a reductionist approach in which diagnostics and interventions focus on a specific target, resulting in medicines that center on generic, static phenomena while excluding inherent dynamic nature of biological processes, let alone psychosocial parameters. In this essay, we present some limitations of the current healthcare system and introduce the novel and potential approach of combining ultra-weak photon emission (UPE) with metabolomics technology in order to provide a dynamic readout of higher organizational systems. We argue that the combination of metabolomics and UPE can bring a new, broader, view of health state and can potentially help to shift healthcare toward more personalized approach that improves patient well-being.

Measuring ultra-weak photon emission as a non-invasive diagnostic tool for detecting early-stage type 2 diabetes: A step toward personalized medicine.

The global prevalence of type 2 diabetes is estimated to reach 4.4% by 2030, placing a significant burden on our healthcare system. Therefore, the ability to identify patients in early stages of the disease is essential for both prevention and effective management, and diagnostic methods based on traditional Chinese medicine (TCM) may be suitable for identifying patients with early-stage type 2 diabetes.

Ultra-weak photon emission of hands in aging prediction.

Aging has been one of the several topics intensely investigated during recent decades. More scientists have been scrutinizing mechanisms behind the human aging process. Ultra-weak photon emission is known as one type of spontaneous photon emission that can be detected with a highly sensitive single photon counting photomultiplier tube (PMT) from the surface of human bodies.

Effects of growth altitude on chemical constituents and delayed luminescence properties in medicinal rhubarb.

To improve the quality control of herbal drugs, there has been a major shift from evaluating individual chemicals to evaluating multiple-constituent chemicals, given the multi-pharmacology nature of herbal drugs. Therefore, rapid, systematic assays are needed in order to assess the quality of medicinal herbs using a comprehensive, integrated approach. Light-induced delayed luminescence (DL) is used to measure decaying long-term ultra-weak photon emissions following excitation with light.

A Chinese literature overview on ultra-weak photon emission as promising technology for studying system-based diagnostics.

To present the possibilities pertaining to linking ultra-weak photon emission (UPE) with Chinese medicine-based diagnostics principles, we conducted a review of Chinese literature regarding UPE with respect to a systems view of diagnostics. Data were summarized from human clinical studies and animal models published from 1979 through 1998. The research fields can be categorized as follows: (1) human physiological states measured using UPE; (2) characteristics of human UPE in relation to various pathological states; and (3) the relationship between diagnosis (e.

Delayed luminescence: an experimental protocol for Chinese herbal medicines.

In Chinese medicine, raw herbal materials are used in processed and unprocessed forms aiming to meet the different requirements of clinical practice. To assure the chemical quality and therapeutic properties of the herbs, fast and integrated systematic assays are required. So far, such assays have not been established.

Physiological effects of homeopathic medicines in closed phials--a critical evaluation.

Background: Phials containing high dilutions of homeopathic remedies are commonly utilized in diagnostic tools in combination with electro acupuncture measuring electrical conductivity of the skin. The present research aimed to elucidate the interaction of the homeopathic remedy and the human organism.

Method: The study protocol included the transition of a healthy subject to a diseased state utilizing a sub-harmful dose of a toxin.

Non-monotonic dynamics and crosstalk in signaling pathways and their implications for pharmacology.

Currently, drug discovery approaches commonly assume a monotonic dose-response relationship. However, the assumption of monotonicity is increasingly being challenged. Here we show that for two simple interacting linear signaling pathways that carry two different signals with different physiological responses, a non-monotonic input-output relation can arise with simple network topologies including coherent and incoherent feed-forward loops.

Circuit topology of proteins and nucleic acids.

Folded biomolecules display a bewildering structural complexity and diversity. They have therefore been analyzed in terms of generic topological features. For instance, folded proteins may be knotted, have beta-strands arranged into a Greek-key motif, or display high contact order.

Trehalose facilitates DNA melting: a single-molecule optical tweezers study.

Using optical tweezers, here we show that the overstretching transition force of double-stranded DNA (dsDNA) is lowered significantly by the addition of the disaccharide trehalose as well as certain polyol osmolytes. This effect is found to depend linearly on the logarithm of the trehalose concentration. We propose an entropic driving mechanism for the experimentally observed destabilization of dsDNA that is rooted in the higher affinity of the DNA bases for trehalose than for water, which promotes base exposure and DNA melting.

Geographical and temporal distribution of basic research experiments in homeopathy.

The database HomBRex (Homeopathy Basic Research experiments) was established in 2002 to provide an overview of the basic research already done on homeopathy (http://www.carstens-stiftung.de/hombrex).

Ultraweak photon emission as a non-invasive health assessment: a systematic review.

We conducted a systematic review (SR) of the peer reviewed scientific literature on ultraweak photon emissions (UPE) from humans. The question was: Can ultraweak photon emissions from humans be used as a non-invasive health assessment? A systematic search was conducted across eight relevant databases: PubMed/MEDLINE, BIOSIS, CINAHL, PSYCHINFO, All of Cochrane EBM databases, GIDEON, DoD Biomedical Research, and clinicaltrials.gov from database inception to October 2011.

Imaging of ultra-weak photon emission in a rheumatoid arthritis mouse model.

Ultra-weak photon emission (UPE) of a living system received scientific attention because of its potential for monitoring increased levels of reactive oxygen species (ROS) in the pathogenesis of rheumatoid arthritis (RA). In this study, a highly sensitive cryogenic charge-coupled device (CCD) camera was used to monitor in a RA mouse model the photon emission both without and with luminol. For that purpose, arthritis was induced in mice utilizing a repeated co-administration of type II collagen with lipopolysaccharide.

Towards whole-body ultra-weak photon counting and imaging with a focus on human beings: a review.

For decades, the relationship between ultra-weak photon emission (UPE) and the health state of the body is being studied. With the advent of systems biology, attention shifted from the association between UPE and reactive oxygen species towards UPE as a reflection of changed metabolic networks. Essential for this shift in thinking is the development of novel photon count statistical methods that more reflect the dynamics of the systems organization.

Attributes characterizing spontaneous ultra-weak photon signals of human subjects.

Sixty visible range photon signals spontaneously emitted from the dorsal side of both hands of fifteen human subjects are analyzed with the aim of finding their attributes. The signals are of 30 min duration and detected in bins of 50 ms by two synchronized photo multipliers sensitive in the range (290-630 nm). Each signal is a time series of 36,000 elements.

Unbiased tracking of the progression of mRNA and protein synthesis in bulk and in liposome-confined reactions.

The compartmentalization of a cell-free gene expression system inside a self-assembled lipid vesicle is envisioned as the simplest chassis for the construction of a minimal cell. Although crucial for its realization, quantitative understanding of the dynamics of gene expression in bulk and liposome-confined reactions is scarce. Here, we used two orthogonal fluorescence labeling tools to report the amounts of mRNA and protein produced in a reconstituted biosynthesis system, simultaneously and in real-time.