Raman micro-spectroscopy as a non-invasive cell viability test.

The number of techniques to identify, quantify and characterise cell death is rapidly increasing as more is known about the complex mechanisms underlying this process. However, most of these techniques are invasive and require preparation steps such as cell fixation, staining or protein extractions. Non-invasive analysis of living cells represents a key point in cell biology, e.g. in toxicology studies or in tissue engineering. In this chapter, we report the usefulness of Raman spectroscopy as a non-invasive method to distinguish cells at different stages of cell cycle and living cells from dead cells. Throughout two examples, we show the performance and the use of Raman spectroscopy as a new non-invasive method to assess cell viability.