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Updated: Jul 28, 2026
A New Technique for Quantitative Analysis of Hair Loss in Mice Using Grayscale Analysis
Published on: March 9, 2015
Conformational differences in protein disulfide linkages between normal hair and hair from subjects with
S Schlücker1, C Liang, K R Strehle
1Laboratory of Chemical Physics, National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, National Institutes of Health, Bethesda, MD 20892, USA.
Abstract:
Raman spectra of normal hair shafts and hair shafts from patients exhibiting trichothiodystrophy (TTD) were obtained using line focus laser illumination. Because hair from TTD patients has a significant decrease in the content of the sulfur-containing amino acids in comparison to normal hair, the 550-500 cm(-1) disulfide stretching mode region of the Raman spectrum was examined in detail. A quantitative spectral analysis demonstrates significant increases in the two energetically less favored gauche-gauche-trans (g-g-t) and trans-gauche-trans (t-g-t) forms. These observations suggest that the increased amounts of these less stable disulfide conformers are contributing factors to or associated with the hair brittleness observed for this congenital disorder. Structure-spectra correlations for the three dominant disulfide conformers are confirmed by quantum chemical calculations using modern density functional theory (DFT).
