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Probing Individual Living Cells with Synchrotron-Based FTIR Spectromicroscopy

Can infrared light from a synchrotron be used to study changes in single, living human cells? If so, it would open up possibilities for the eventual use of synchrotron infrared light in medical diagnostics or environmental health research. Some day, it may be routine to study a tiny sample of tissue from a patient and, by using synchrotron infrared spectroscopy, identify a single cell that has been subtly altered by exposure to a chemical. The two experiments reported here by a Berkeley Lab/ALS team, infrared microscopy studies of human cells throughout their life cycle and of cells exposed to the toxic chemical dioxin, bring this day closer. However, using a scientific technique in a way in which it hasn’t been used before calls for verification by comparison with other methods. The strong correlation the researchers observed between infrared and known biochemical techniques shows that the group was indeed measuring real changes associated with the cell cycle and with dioxin.