The fluorescent blue glow of banana fruits is not due to symplasmic plastidial catabolism but arises from insoluble phenols estherified to the cell wall

Banana fruits are firstly green due to chlorophyll, then yellow due to carotenoids and finally turn black due to polyphenols. However, bananas glow blue when observed under UV light. It has been reported that chlorophylls fade to give rise to fluorescent chlorophyll catabolites (FCCs) in senescent banana leaves and in ripening banana peels. FCCs are short lived catabolic intermediates that ultimately lead to non-fluorescent chlorophyll catabolites (NCCs). FCCs are abundant in bananas due to hypermodification; therefore, it was concluded that FCC caused yellow bananas to glow blue. Experiments were performed in order to shed new light into the autofluorescence phenomenon. Microscopy performed on living plant samples contradict the interpretation that the fluorescent blue glow is mainly caused by FCC inside the cell. Blue fluorescence in banana emerges from the cell wall, not from the symplasm. It is not primarily caused by soluble chlorophyll catabolites in the vacuoles or senescing plastids. Insoluble phenolics from the apoplast make bananas shine strongly blue under black light. Chlorophyll is a light trap that generates black holes of blue fluorescence, and therefore cells with chloroplasts glow less blue. The white pulp of banana fruits shine more strongly than the outer peel. In both tissues autofluorescence arises from insoluble phenols that are estherified to the cell wall. In monocot species (banana, maize, sugarcanne), blue fluorescense was strongest in the cell wall, whereas in dicots (e.g. arabidopsis, spearmint, hibiscus), blue fluorescence may be dominant from cytosolic, vacuolar or plastidial compartments.

Pitfalls in determining head and neck surgical margins

Accurate assessment of surgical margins in the head and neck is a challenge. Multiple factors may lead to inaccurate margin assessment such as tissue shrinkage, nonstandardized nomenclature, anatomic constraints, and complex three dimensional specimen orientation. Excision method and standard histologic processing techniques may obscure distance measurements from the tumor front to the normal tissue edge. Arbitrary definitions of what constitutes a "close" margin do not consider the prognostic significance of resection dimensions. In this article we review some common pitfalls in determining margin status in head and neck resection specimens as well as highlight newer techniques of molecular margin assessment.