Micro-Raman spectroscopy of mixed cancer cell populations

Abstract

Micro-Raman spectroscopy was used to investigate randomly mixed cell populations of human promyelocytic leukemia (HL60) and human breast cancer (MCF7); human uterine sarcoma (Mes-sa) and MCF7; as well as their respective pure cell lines. In this study the efficiency of micro-Raman spectroscopy to identify a cell type in randomly distributed mixed cell population was assessed. Raman data show that the differences in spectral profile between MCF7 and HL60 cell lines were more marked than those between MCF7 and Mes-sa cells. This shows that cells from different origins can display variances in their spectral signatures. Spectra were also analyzed by principal components analysis and results obtained from pure cell populations gave a reasonably good delineation between the cell types. Analysis of both mixed cell populations along with their pure cells counterparts, resulted in each case in three different clusters corresponding to the two pure cell populations and the mixed populations. However, a few spectra from the mixed population remained misclassified and were found to be closer to the clusters corresponding to pure cells. These results indicate that micro-Raman spectroscopy can be used to identify a cell type in a mixed cell population via its spectral signature.