Attenuated Total Reflection Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy Analysis of Human Hair Fiber Structure
May 2008
in “
Applied spectroscopy
”
Studysummary This study found that human hair cuticle and cortex have different protein structures, with beta-sheet and disorder configurations in the cuticle and alpha-helical structures in the cortex. Our plain-language summary of this paper — not a Tressless recommendation.
The study utilized attenuated total reflection Fourier transform infrared (ATR-FT-IR) spectroscopy to analyze the structure of human hair fibers, focusing on the cuticle, cortex, and cuticle-cortex intercellular regions without removing the cuticle. The cuticle was found to consist mainly of proteins in beta-sheet, disorder, and beta-turn configurations, while the cortex exhibited alpha-helical structures due to alpha keratin, along with beta-sheet, beta-turn, and disorder structures. The cuticle-cortex interface primarily contained disorder and beta-turn structures with minor beta-sheet configurations. These findings aligned with existing literature on hair fiber structure.
