2018 年 28 巻 1 号 p. 31-37
Pressure is, as same as heat, an important factor for various fields of science since it affects to physical properties and chemical reactions of all materials. Although pressure effects on the stability and function of biological molecules such as lipids, sugars, proteins, nucleic acids, and even on life itself, have been interested from early days, such approach did not popular for many researchers because it needed large-scale expensive apparatuses of specially designed. However, recent developments of small-size high-pressure optical cell units provide a real-time monitoring of pressure effects on such biomolecules under elevated pressure conditions using various techniques with commercially available spectrometers. In this article, recent advances and future challenges in the high-pressure research methods and apparatuses used for life and food sciences are reviewed.
