Scientists Discover Invisible Early Signs of Skin Aging

An international team of scientists led by researchers at Hiroshima University has developed a method for detecting subtle changes in human skin collagen at an early stage, before any visible signs of damage appear. The study, published in ACS Nano, found that the molecular organization and supramolecular chirality — or structural directionality — of dermal collagen deteriorate before the visible fibrous network begins to thin or fragment, Nauka Rossii reports.

Collagen is a hierarchical material that forms a highly organized network responsible for supporting the skin’s structure and mechanical strength. Traditional imaging methods can readily detect visible changes, such as fiber thinning or disruption of the network. However, these structural abnormalities represent later stages of tissue remodeling.

“Traditional imaging methods can show the ‘building blocks’ of collagen structure, but they may not capture subtle changes in how those building blocks are arranged,” said Ali Haider, the study’s first author. “It is like detecting changes in the arrangement of words and sentences in a book before any pages are damaged or missing.”

To identify these hidden patterns, the team combined advanced optical imaging techniques with chiroptical spectroscopy, including synchrotron-radiation vacuum-ultraviolet circular dichroism (SR-VUVCD) and multidimensional quantum cascade laser vibrational circular dichroism (MultiD-QCL-VCD). This approach made it possible to determine both the presence of collagen and its chiral structural coherence within the same physical tissue section.

The results revealed a clear discrepancy between the amount of collagen and its structural organization: tissue samples retained their overall collagen content and distribution even after a substantial decline in supramolecular chirality.

“The central idea of this paper is that collagen should be viewed not only as a visible network of fibers, but also as a hierarchical material whose function depends on organization across different length scales,” said Katsuya Inoue, a professor at WPI-SKCM² and one of the study’s authors. “Modern correlative methods can reveal changes in this hidden organization that are not apparent when examining morphology alone.”

The researchers aim to develop a comprehensive system that combines molecular chirality, supramolecular organization, and the macroscopic structure of tissue. Such an approach could provide new insights into medical interventions, wound healing, and the development of biomaterials, allowing researchers to assess tissue integrity before irreversible macroscopic damage occurs.

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