Multivariate analysis of Raman spectra for in vitro non-invasive studies of living cells

PCA and LDA are used to discriminate between healthy and tumor cells. A leave-one-out cross-validation method indicated high prediction accuracy (95%) in identification of tumorogenic bone cells. The CLS fitting method using commercially available biopolymers makes it possible to monitor biochemical changes during the differentiation of embryonic stem cells and foetal bone cells. The results suggest that in both cases differentiated cells are characterised by lower concentrations of RNA compared to undifferentiated cells. These studies suggest that Raman micro-spectroscopy could become an invaluable tool for in vitro cellular biochemistry studies.