A major limitation of spontaneous Raman scattering is its intrinsically weak signals, which makes Raman analysis or imaging of biological specimens slow and impractical for many applications. To address this, we report the development of a novel modulated multifocal detection scheme for simultaneous acquisition of full Raman spectra from a 2-D m × n multifocal array. A spatial light modulator (SLM), or a pair of galvo-mirrors, is used to generate m × n laser foci. Raman signals generated within each focus are projected simultaneously into a spectrometer and detected by a CCD camera. The system can resolve the Raman spectra with no crosstalk along the vertical pixels of the CCD camera, e.g., along the entrance slit of the spectrometer. However, there is significant overlap of the spectra in the horizontal pixel direction, e.g., along the dispersion direction. By modulating the excitation multifocal array (illumination modulation) or the emitted Raman signal array (detection modulation), the superimposed Raman spectra of different multifocal patterns are collected. The individual Raman spectrum from each focus is then retrieved from the superimposed spectra using a postacquisition data processing algorithm. This development leads to a significant improvement in the speed of acquiring Raman spectra. We discuss the application of this detection scheme for parallel analysis of individual cells with multifocus laser tweezers Raman spectroscopy (M-LTRS) and for rapid confocal hyperspectral Raman imaging.
The dynamics of bacterial spore germination were successfully observed using a fast Raman imaging system, in combination with real-time phase contrast microscopy. By using a multifocus scan scheme, the spontaneous Raman-scattering imaging acquisition speed was increased to ∼30 s per frame while maintaining diffraction-limited resolution, which allowed monitoring of the dynamics of spore germination on a time scale of tens of seconds to a few minutes. This allowed simultaneous gathering of rich spatial distribution information on different cellular components including time-lapse molecular images of Ca-dipicolinic acid, protein, and nucleic acid during germination of single bacterial spores for the periods of 30 to 60 min.
We have developed a multifocus confocal Raman microspectroscopy system that allows simultaneous analyses of ∼80 individual biological or airborne microparticles based on a precise image-guided technique. Multiple individual particles adhered in random positions on a coverslip were illuminated by a multifocus excitation pattern formed by rapidly steering a single laser beam with a pair of galvo-mirrors, and their Raman scatterings were synchronously projected with another galvo-mirror to different rows of a CCD chip for parallel spectroscopic analyses. We show that this technique can be used to rapidly identify single airborne particles or bacteria collected on a slide and to monitor germination dynamics of multiple bacterial spores in real-time.
Raman tweezers and quantitative differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy are combined to monitor the dynamic germination of individual bacterial spores of Bacillus species, as well as the heterogeneity in this process. The DIC bias phase is set properly such that the brightness of DIC images of individual spores is proportional to the dipicolinic acid (DPA) level of the spores, and an algorithm is developed to retrieve the phase image of an individual spore from its DIC image. We find that during germination, the rapid drop in both the intensity of the original DIC image and the intensity of the reconstructed phase image precisely corresponds to the release of all DPA from that spore. The summed pixel intensity of the DIC image of individual spores adhered on a microscope coverslip is not sensitive to the drift of the slide in both horizontal and vertical directions, which facilitates observation of the germination of thousands of individual spores for long periods of time. A motorized stage and synchronized image acquisition system is further developed to effectively expand the field of view of the DIC imaging. This quantitative DIC technique is used to track the germination of hundreds or thousands of individual spores simultaneously.
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