Imaging chemistry inside living cells by stimulated Raman scattering microscopy

•Multiplex SRS microscopy allows microsecond-scale acquisition of a Raman spectrum.•Label-free of SRS imaging identified hidden signatures inside cancer cells.•Integration of SRS imaging and Raman tags allows selective imaging of small molecules.

Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy is a vibrational imaging platform developed to visualize chemical content of a biological sample based on molecular vibrational fingerprints. With high-speed, high-sensitivity, and three-dimensional sectioning capability, SRS microscopy has been used to study chemical distribution, molecular transport, and metabolic conversion in living cells in a label-free manner. Moreover, aided with bio-orthogonal small-volume Raman probes, SRS microscopy allows direct imaging of metabolic activities of small molecules in living cells.