Spectrally modulated stimulated Raman scattering imaging with an angle-to-wavelength pulse shaper

Label-free Imaging of Neurotransmitter Acetylcholine at Neuromuscular Junctions with Stimulated Raman Scattering

Acetylcholine is an important neurotransmitter that relays neural excitation from lower motor neurons to muscles. It also plays significant roles in the central nervous system by modulating neurotransmission. However, there is a lack of tools to directly measure the quantity and distribution of acetylcholine at the subcellular level. In this Communication, we demonstrate for the first time that label-free imaging of acetylcholine is achieved with frequency-modulated spectral-focusing stimulated Raman scattering (FMSF-SRS) microscopy: a technical improvement over traditional SRS microscopy that effectively removes imaging backgrounds. Moreover, we directly quantified the local concentration of acetylcholine at the neuromuscular junction of frog cutaneous pectoris muscle.

Low drift cw-seeded high-repetition-rate optical parametric amplifier for fingerprint coherent Raman spectroscopy

We introduce a broadly tunable robust source for fingerprint (170 - 1620 cm^-1) Raman spectroscopy. A cw thulium-doped fiber laser seeds an optical parametric amplifier, which is pumped by a 7-W, 450-fs Yb:KGW bulk mode-locked oscillator with 41 MHz repetition rate. The output radiation is frequency doubled in a MgO:PPLN crystal and generates 0.7 - 1.3-ps-long narrowband pump pulses that are tunable between 885 and 1015 nm with >80 mW average power. The Stokes beam is delivered by a part of the oscillator output, which is sent through an etalon to create pulses with 1.7 ps duration. We demonstrate a stimulated Raman gain measurement of toluene in the fingerprint spectral range. The cw seeding intrinsically ensures low spectral drift.

In Situ and In Vivo Molecular Analysis by Coherent Raman Scattering Microscopy

Coherent Raman scattering (CRS) microscopy is a high-speed vibrational imaging platform with the ability to visualize the chemical content of a living specimen by using molecular vibrational fingerprints. We review technical advances and biological applications of CRS microscopy. The basic theory of CRS and the state-of-the-art instrumentation of a CRS microscope are presented. We further summarize and compare the algorithms that are used to separate the Raman signal from the nonresonant background, to denoise a CRS image, and to decompose a hyperspectral CRS image into concentration maps of principal components. Important applications of single-frequency and hyperspectral CRS microscopy are highlighted. Potential directions of CRS microscopy are discussed.

Stimulated Raman scattering microscopy: an emerging tool for drug discovery

Optical microscopy techniques have emerged as a cornerstone of biomedical research, capable of probing the cellular functions of a vast range of substrates, whilst being minimally invasive to the cells or tissues of interest. Incorporating biological imaging into the early stages of the drug discovery process can provide invaluable information about drug activity within complex disease models. Spontaneous Raman spectroscopy has been widely used as a platform for the study of cells and their components based on chemical composition; but slow acquisition rates, poor resolution and a lack of sensitivity have hampered further development. A new generation of stimulated Raman techniques is emerging which allows the imaging of cells, tissues and organisms at faster acquisition speeds, and with greater resolution and sensitivity than previously possible. This review focuses on the development of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), and covers the use of bioorthogonal tags to enhance sample detection, and recent applications of both spontaneous Raman and SRS as novel imaging platforms to facilitate the drug discovery process.

Fast wavelength-tunable picosecond pulses from a passively mode-locked Er fiber laser using a galvanometer-driven intracavity filter

We experimentally investigate fast wavelength-tuning characteristics of a polarization-maintaining Er fiber laser, which is mode-locked with a semiconductor saturable absorber mirror. Wavelength tuning was accomplished with an intracavity filter incorporating a galvanometer mirror and a diffraction grating. Within the tunability of 30 nm, we achieved a wavelength-tuning speed of <5 ms. We also show that the variation of repetition rates can be suppressed to <200 Hz by simply shifting the position of the grating. The presented scheme for generating wavelength-tunable pulses will be potentially useful for coherent Raman spectral imaging.

Applications of coherent Raman scattering microscopies to clinical and biological studies

Coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) microscopy and stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy are two nonlinear optical imaging modalities that are at the frontier of label-free and chemical specific biological and clinical diagnostics. The applications of coherent Raman scattering (CRS) microscopies are multifold, ranging from investigation of basic aspects of cell biology to the label-free detection of pathologies. This review summarizes recent progress of biological and clinical applications of CRS between 2008 and 2014, covering applications such as lipid droplet research, single cell analysis, tissue imaging and multiphoton histopathology of atherosclerosis, myelin sheaths, skin, hair, pharmaceutics, and cancer and surgical margin detection.

Raman microimaging of murine lungs: insight into the vitamin A content

The composition of mice lung tissue was investigated using Raman confocal microscopy at 532 nm excitation wavelength supported with different experimental staining techniques as well as DFT calculations.

Direct visualization of de novo lipogenesis in single living cells

Increased de novo lipogenesis is being increasingly recognized as a hallmark of cancer. Despite recent advances in fluorescence microscopy, autoradiography and mass spectrometry, direct observation of de novo lipogenesis in living systems remains to be challenging. Here, by coupling stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy with isotope labeled glucose, we were able to trace the dynamic metabolism of glucose in single living cells with high spatial-temporal resolution. As the first direct visualization, we observed that glucose was largely utilized for lipid synthesis in pancreatic cancer cells, which occurs at a much lower rate in immortalized normal pancreatic epithelial cells. By inhibition of glycolysis and fatty acid synthase (FAS), the key enzyme for fatty acid synthesis, we confirmed the deuterium labeled lipids in cancer cells were from de novo lipid synthesis. Interestingly, we also found that prostate cancer cells exhibit relatively lower level of de novo lipogenesis, but higher fatty acid uptake compared to pancreatic cancer cells. Together, our results demonstrate a valuable tool to study dynamic lipid metabolism in cancer and other disorders.

Fast vibrational imaging of single cells and tissues by stimulated Raman scattering microscopy

Traditionally, molecules are analyzed in a test tube. Taking biochemistry as an example, the majority of our knowledge about cellular content comes from analysis of fixed cells or tissue homogenates using tools such as immunoblotting and liquid chromatography-mass spectrometry. These tools can indicate the presence of molecules but do not provide information on their location or interaction with each other in real time, restricting our understanding of the functions of the molecule under study. For real-time imaging of labeled molecules in live cells, fluorescence microscopy is the tool of choice. Fluorescent labels, however, are too bulky for small molecules such as fatty acids, amino acids, and cholesterol. These challenges highlight a critical need for development of chemical imaging platforms that allow in situ or in vivo analysis of molecules. Vibrational spectroscopy based on spontaneous Raman scattering is widely used for label-free analysis of chemical content in cells and tissues. However, the Raman process is a weak effect, limiting its application for fast chemical imaging of a living system. With high imaging speed and 3D spatial resolution, coherent Raman scattering microscopy is enabling a new approach for real-time vibrational imaging of single cells in a living system. In most experiments, coherent Raman processes involve two excitation fields denoted as pump at ωp and Stokes at ωs. When the beating frequency between the pump and Stokes fields (ωp - ωs) is resonant with a Raman-active molecular vibration, four major coherent Raman scattering processes occur simultaneously, namely, coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) at (ωp - ωs) + ωp, coherent Stokes Raman scattering (CSRS) at ωs - (ωp - ωs), stimulated Raman gain (SRG) at ωs, and stimulated Raman loss (SRL) at ωp. In SRG, the Stokes beam experiences a gain in intensity, whereas in SRL, the pump beam experiences a loss. Both SRG and SRL belong to stimulated Raman scattering (SRS), in which the energy difference between the pump and Stokes fields is transferred to the molecule for vibrational excitation. The SRS signal appears at the same wavelengths as the excitation fields and is commonly extracted through a phase-sensitive detection scheme. The detected intensity change because of a Raman transition is proportional to Im[χ(3)]IpIs, where χ(3) represents the third-order nonlinear susceptibility, Ip and Is stand for the intensity of the pump and Stokes fields. In this Account, we discuss the most recent advances in the technical development and enabling applications of SRS microscopy. Compared to CARS, the SRS contrast is free of nonresonant background. Moreover, the SRS intensity is linearly proportional to the density of target molecules in focus. For single-frequency imaging, an SRS microscope offers a speed that is ∼1000 times faster than a line-scan Raman microscope and 10,000 times faster than a point-scan Raman microscope. It is important to emphasize that SRS and spontaneous Raman scattering are complementary to each other. Spontaneous Raman spectroscopy covers the entire window of molecular vibrations, which allows extraction of subtleties via multivariate analysis. SRS offers the speed advantage by focusing on either a single Raman band or a defined spectral window of target molecules. Integrating single-frequency SRS imaging and spontaneous Raman spectroscopy on a single platform allows quantitative compositional analysis of objects inside single live cells.

Multicolor live-cell chemical imaging by isotopically edited alkyne vibrational palette

Vibrational imaging such as Raman microscopy is a powerful technique for visualizing a variety of molecules in live cells and tissues with chemical contrast. Going beyond the conventional label-free modality, recent advance of coupling alkyne vibrational tags with stimulated Raman scattering microscopy paves the way for imaging a wide spectrum of alkyne-labeled small biomolecules with superb sensitivity, specificity, resolution, biocompatibility, and minimal perturbation. Unfortunately, the currently available alkyne tag only processes a single vibrational "color", which prohibits multiplex chemical imaging of small molecules in a way that is being routinely practiced in fluorescence microscopy. Herein we develop a three-color vibrational palette of alkyne tags using a (13)C-based isotopic editing strategy. We first synthesized (13)C isotopologues of EdU, a DNA metabolic reporter, by using the newly developed alkyne cross-metathesis reaction. Consistent with theoretical predictions, the mono-(13)C ((13)C≡(12)C) and bis-(13)C ((13)C≡(13)C) labeled alkyne isotopologues display Raman peaks that are red-shifted and spectrally resolved from the originally unlabeled ((12)C≡(12)C) alkynyl probe. We further demonstrated three-color chemical imaging of nascent DNA, RNA, and newly uptaken fatty-acid in live mammalian cells with a simultaneous treatment of three different isotopically edited alkynyl metabolic reporters. The alkyne vibrational palette presented here thus opens up multicolor imaging of small biomolecules, enlightening a new dimension of chemical imaging.

Sparse sampling for fast hyperspectral coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering imaging

We demonstrate a method to increase the acquisition speed in coherent anti-Stokes Raman scattering (CARS) hyperspectral imaging while retaining the relevant spectral information. The method first determines the important spectral components of a sample from a hyper-spectral image over a small number of spatial points but a large number of spectral points covering the accessible spectral range and sampling the instrument spectral resolution at the Nyquist limit. From these components we determine a small set of frequencies needed to retrieve the weights of the components with minimum error for a given measurement noise. Hyperspectral images with a large number of spatial points, for example covering a large spatial region, are then measured at this small set of frequencies, and a reconstruction algorithm is applied to generate the full spectral range and resolution. The resulting spectra are suited to retrieve from the CARS intensity the CARS susceptibility which is linear in the concentration, and apply unsupervised quantitative analysis methods such as FSC3. We demonstrate the method on CARS hyperspectral images of human osteosarcoma U2OS cell, with a reduction in the acquisition time by a factor of 25. This method is suited also for other coherent vibrational microscopy techniques such as stimulated Raman scattering, and in general for hyperspectral imaging techniques with sequential spectral acquisition.

Background-free stimulated Raman spectroscopy and microscopy

We propose a three-color, double-modulation scheme for the background-free detection of stimulated Raman scattering (SRS). We call the scheme stimulated Raman gain and opposite loss detection (SRGOLD). It exploits the symmetric nature of potential parasitic signals (cross phase modulation, two-photon absorption, and thermal effects) to the end of suppressing them. Conversely, the antisymmetric nature of SRS provides for a twofold increase in the magnitude of the SRS signal. We experimentally demonstrate SRGOLD spectroscopy and microscopy on test samples as well as on mice skin samples.