Molecular imaging of live cells by Raman microscopy

Raman microscopy represents an emerging class of tools for molecular imaging of live cells because of the rich information obtained by detecting molecular vibrations. Recently, several Raman imaging techniques based on the parallel detection of Raman spectra have been developed, which can achieve high spatial and temporal resolution suitable for live cell imaging. When combined with tiny Raman tags in the cellular silent region, Raman microscopy has capability to map the distribution of specific target small molecules with minimum perturbation from the tag. Here we review these recent advances in cell imaging techniques based on spontaneous Raman scattering and highlight its potential for the observation and analysis of biological functions.