Analysis of Fixed and Live Single Cells Using Optical Photothermal Infrared with Concomitant Raman Spectroscopy

This paper reports the first use of a novel completely optically based photothermal method (O-PTIR) for obtaining infrared spectra of both fixed and living cells using a quantum cascade laser (QCL) and optical parametric oscillator (OPO) laser as excitation sources, thus enabling all biologically relevant vibrations to be analyzed at sub-micron spatial resolution. In addition, infrared data acquisition is combined with concomitant Raman spectra from exactly the same excitation location, meaning the full vibrational profile of the cell can be obtained. The pancreatic cancer cell line MIA-PaCa-2 and the breast cancer cell line MDA-MB-231, are used as model cells to demonstrate the capabilities of the new instrumentation. These combined modalities can be used to analyze subcellular structures in both fixed and, more importantly, live cells under aqueous conditions. We show that protein secondary structure and lipid rich bodies can be identified on the sub-micron scale.