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Raman spectroscopy as a tool for detecting mitochondrial fitness
Author(s) -
Erjavec Nika,
Pinato Giulietta,
Ramser Kerstin
Publication year - 2016
Publication title -
journal of raman spectroscopy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.748
H-Index - 110
eISSN - 1097-4555
pISSN - 0377-0486
DOI - 10.1002/jrs.4930
Subject(s) - raman spectroscopy , mitochondrial dna , fragmentation (computing) , mitochondrion , chemistry , mutant , biology , biophysics , biochemistry , analytical chemistry (journal) , physics , gene , chromatography , ecology , optics
Raman spectroscopy allows the molecular chemical analysis of whole living cells by comparing them to known Raman signatures of specific vibrational bonds. In this work we used Raman spectroscopy to differentiate between wild type yeast cells and mutants characterized by increased or reduced mitochondrial fragmentation. To associate mitochondrial fragmentation with biochemical markers, we performed Linear Discriminant Analysis (LDA) of whole cell Raman spectra (~50–100 cells/spectrum). We show that the long‐lived, less fragmented mutants fall into a significantly distant cluster from the wild type and short‐lived, more fragmented mutants. Clustering depends on respiratory growth and coincides with that of membrane phospholipids and some respiratory chain components. Spectral clustering is supported by enzymatic activity measurements of OXPHOS Complexes. In addition, we find that NAD(P)H autofluorescence also correlates with mitochondrial fragmentation, representing another likely aging biomarker, besides phospholipids and OXPHOS components. In summary, we demonstrate that Raman spectroscopy has the potential to become a powerful tool for differentiating healthy from unhealthy aged tissues, as well as for the prognostic evaluation of mitochondrial function and fitness. © 2016 The Authors Journal of Raman Spectroscopy Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd