Photon Factory Activity Report 2016 #34 (2017)

BL-11B, 4A/2016G543

Different Distribution of Ca and Oxidative Damage in Human Hair from Patients
Suffering from Breast Cancer
Atsushi Ito1, *, Tsuyoshi Ariyama1, Fumihisa Ouchi1, Kunio Shinohara1,Risa Oshitanai2, Kozue Yokoyama2, Yutaka Tokuda2
1
School of Engineering, Tokai Univ., Hiratsuka, Kanagawa 259-1292, Japan
2
School of Medicine, Tokai Univ., Isehara, Kanagawa 259-1193, Japan

2 Materials and Methods
X-ray contact microscopy was used for imaging cysteicacid, an oxidation product of cystine, at the S-K edge andfor imaging Ca at the Ca-K edge at BL-11B with a spatial
resolution of about 0.5 m. Ca mapping of highsensitivity was also performed by detecting X-rayfluorescence (XRF) upon X-ray microbeam at BL-4A
with a spatial resolution of around 5 m. The hairspecimens were obtained from women with breast cancer
based on informed consent at Tokai University Hospital.
The hair was cut in a thickness of about 20 m, and put
on SiN membrane as described previously [3].
3 Results and Discussion
Figure 1 shows Ca content (a) and oxidative damage(b) plotted against distance from the hair root. The
contents were the average in several areas of 1.4-5 msquare for cuticle, cortex and medulla region. The
increase of Ca content in cuticle area with increasing
distance was nearly parallel with the increase of oxidative
damage. In contrast, the Ca content in medulla does notseem to depend on the distance. Note that the very highcontent at around 29cm was observed as seen from panela. The result was also confirmed by XRF in the panel a ofFig. 2. The oxidation was significant in cortex and cuticle
area (Fig. 2, panel b). These results indicated that themarked increase of Ca in medulla may be related to theincidence of breast cancer. On the other hand Ca increasein cuticle probably result from oxidative damage.
0.6(a)
cuticlecortex
medulla

0.5

Ca/S

0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
0
1

7

13

1525

29

3540

Distance from hair root (cm)(b)

Cysteic acid/(cystine + cysteic acid)

1 Introduction
Applicability of Ca content in human hair toforecasting human breast cancer has been proposed [1],while hair Ca content was known to be largely affectedby external oxidative damage such as bleach treatment [2].
In order to discriminate Ca accumulation by external
stimuli from that provided by blood flow around hairmatrix cells at the hair root, we have applied X-ray
contact microscopy to imaging Ca content and oxidative
damage in bleached hair from healthy female control
group, and found that Ca increase by oxidative damage
mainly distributes in outer region called cuticle andcortex, in contrast to Ca distribution in medulla, a central
part of hair, which does not seem to be related tooxidative damage [3]. This observation suggests that Cacontent in medulla may be critical for the medicalapplication. In the present study, we applied Ca andoxidative damage mapping to hair specimens of a patient
suffering from breast cancer.

0.5
cuticlecortex
medulla

0.4
0.3
0.2
0.1
01

7

13
1525
2935
Distance from hair root (cm)40

Fig. 1. Contents of Ca and oxidative damage in three
regions of human hair with breast cancer from root totip. (a) Ca, (b) oxidative damage.
(a)

(b)

Fig. 2. Distribution of Ca and oxidative damage in thecross-section of human hair at 29cm from the root. (a) Ca
by XRF (BL4A), (b) oxidative damage by contact
microscopy (BL11B).
References[1] J. Chikawa et al., J. X-ray Sci. Tech., 15, 109 (2007).
[2] A.Ito et al., Adv. Chem. Anal. Japan, 43, 161 (2012).
[3] A. Ito et al., AIP Conf. Proc., 1696, 020021 (2016).
* aeito@keyaki.cc.u-tokai.ac.jp