Vibrational spectroscopy differentiates between multipotent and pluripotent stem cells.

Over the last few years, there has been an increased interest in the study of stem cells in biomedicine for therapeutic use and as a source for healing diseased or injured organs/tissues. More recently, vibrational spectroscopy has been applied to study stem cell differentiation. In this study, we have used both synchrotron based FTIR and Raman microspectroscopies to assess possible differences between human pluripotent (embryonic) and multipotent (adult mesenchymal) stem cells, and how O(2) concentration in cell culture could affect the spectral signatures of these cells.

Spectroscopic signatures of single, isolated cancer cell nuclei using synchrotron infrared microscopy.

Single-cell studies have important implications in biomedicine. An accurate investigation of biochemical behaviour and status requires a biomolecular probe such as vibrational microscopy. Amongst other approaches, synchrotron infrared microspectroscopy is an appropriate analytical tool for single-cell investigation.