Laser application in the field of biological and medical sciences has significantly grown, thereby
strengthening the field of Biophotonics. Research conducted in Biophotonics focuses on the concept
of using light especially in the visible and near infrared regions of the electromagnetic radiation for
the evaluation of living systems. In this thesis new discoveries are presented about low level laser
therapy, optical trapping, transmission spectroscopy, luminescence spectroscopy and structured
illumination microscopy (SIM), displaying the impact each technique has on HIV infected cells. The
results showed that the irradiation of HIV-1 infected TZM-bl cells with low power red laser reduces
HIV-1 infection. The outcomes of this study further proved that when irradiation is used in
conjunction with efavirenz, an antiretroviral drug, HIV-1 infection could be reduced to undetectable
levels in TZM-bl cells. Through the coupling of transmission spectroscopy with optical trapping, and
separately, use of luminescence spectroscopy, label free diagnosis of HIV in infected cell samples
was achieved. This finding affirms that HIV-1 infection can be detected in a label free manner when
using laser based techniques. Furthermore, the photoluminescence spectrometer system was
employed to generate a decay curve, which was necessary so as to have some understanding on
lifetime of the luminescent signal in infected TZM-bl cells. Finally, in order to confirm that indeed
TZM-bl cells were infected, an established super-resolution microscopy system SIM was used to
detect HIV-1 infection in TZM-bl cells. Indeed in the infected cells viral molecules p24 and gp41
were detected through SIM, while they were not detected in uninfected cells. In future studies, super
resolution microscopy would be coupled to an optical trapping system in order to confirm that each
trapped cells is whether infected or uninfected so as to improve HIV diagnosis. / College of Science, Engineering and Technology / Ph. D. (Science, Engineering and Technology)
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:netd.ac.za/oai:union.ndltd.org:unisa/oai:uir.unisa.ac.za:10500/26551 |
| Date | 06 1900 |
| Creators | Lugongolo, Masixole Yvonne |
| Contributors | Maaza, Malik,1963-, Mthunzi-Kufa, Patience, Ombinda-Lemboumba, Saturnin |
| Source Sets | South African National ETD Portal |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Thesis |
| Format | 1 online resource (xix, 169 leaves) : color illustrations, color graphs, application/pdf |
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