Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation and effects on tendon tissue: a vibrational spectroscopy study

Extracorporeal membrane oxygenation(ECMO) is an invasive medical techniqueused to provide life support in personswith insufficient cardiac and respiratoryfunctionalities, or to preserve, postmor-tem, and organ function addressingorgan/tissue transplant. Although a lot ofinformation is available about organs intheir entirety, the safety and effectivenessof allogeneic tissues collected from ECMO donors have not been fully eluci-dated. In this preliminary study, samples of tibial and peroneal human tendonswere analyzed along their length with Raman microspectroscopy and attenu-ated total reflection-Fourier transform infrared micro-imaging. Both tech-niques evidenced a different chemical composition in the terminal withrespect to the central part of the tendon. Thus, a differentiated analysis wasperformed depending on the specific position with respect to the bone or themuscle junctions. Spectroscopic analyses showed significant differences in thecharacteristics of the extracellular matrix between tendons from ECMO andnon-ECMO donors, suggesting changes in the amino acid (proline andhydroxyproline) content and protein structure.