Polarization in Raman spectroscopy helps explain bone brittleness in genetic mouse models.

Raman spectroscopy (RS) has been extensively used to characterize bone composition. However, the link between bone biomechanics and RS measures is not well established. Here, we leveraged the sensitivity of RS polarization to organization, thereby assessing whether RS can explain differences in bone toughness in genetic mouse models for which traditional RS peak ratios are not informative.