Recognizing different tissues in human fetal femur cartilage by label-free Raman microspectroscopy.

Traditionally, the composition of bone and cartilage is determined by standard histological methods. We used Raman microscopy, which provides a molecular "fingerprint" of the investigated sample, to detect differences between the zones in human fetal femur cartilage without the need for additional staining or labeling. Raman area scans were made from the (pre)articular cartilage, resting, proliferative, and hypertrophic zones of growth plate and endochondral bone within human fetal femora.