Applications of Raman spectroscopy in the development of cell therapies: state of the art and future perspectives

Abstract

This comprehensive review article discusses current and future perspectives of Raman spectroscopy-based analyses of cell therapy processes and products.

Raman Microscopy: Progress in Research on Cancer Cell Sensing

“…Thanks to the detection abilities described in Section 2.1 , RS has been largely used for the identification of cancer/non-cancer cells, as well as to monitor the stage of cancer levels by visualizing and detecting the DNA/RNA, protein, and lipid structural distribution within the cell [ 29 ]. Eventually, RS can be used for early stage cancer diagnosis and therapeutic drug monitoring (TDM) [ 10 , 30 ]. In the forthcoming section, we discuss two examples of RS application for cancer cell sensing in fluids including blood cells (leukemia cells) or liquid biopsy (breast cancer).…”

“…The fact that Raman spectroscopy can provide molecular/chemical information of the cell of interest makes it a competitive contender in the molecular imaging arena. Aside from chemical specificity, Raman spectroscopy also possesses many other desirable properties for imaging applications, such as high spatial resolution, high multiplexing capability and excellent photostability [ 10 ].…”

“…On a different note, Raman imaging can overcome problems resulting from limited stability, bleaching, the use of external biomarkers and long sample preparation associated with traditional morphological analysis like electron microscopy and fluorescence microscopy, opening the way to in vivo analysis. Raman microscopy (RM) can be a complement to conventional staining methods that can be easily used for monitoring the sub-cellular components of normal and cancer cells [ 10 , 11 ]. Therefore, the application of RM can be used as a non-invasive method for the early diagnosis of cancer cells.…”

Tissue Phantoms for Biomedical Applications in Raman Spectroscopy: A Review

“…Some of them include cancer screening, 1 pathogen identification, 2,3 body fluid analysis, 4 transfusion blood assessment, 5 disease diagnosis, [6][7][8] drug analysis, 9 or even as a process analytical tool for cell therapies. 10 The continuous need for tissue-like samples in the standardization and development of spectroscopic and other optical applications combined with the limited availability of human tissue due to ethics reasons, has led to the adoption of tissue-mimicking phantoms or tissue models. The optical tissue phantoms are synthetic models mimicking not only human tissue properties, but also light propagation and interactions through it.…”

“…Some of them include cancer screening, 1 pathogen identification, 2,3 body fluid analysis, 4 transfusion blood assessment, 5 disease diagnosis, 6-8 drug analysis, 9 or even as a process analytical tool for cell therapies. 10…”