Detection of weak absorption changes from molecular events in time-resolved FT-IR spectromicroscopy measurements of single functional cells.

The possibility of performing FT-IR spectromicroscopy experiments on individual living cells is the focus of considerable attention. Among the applications of interest, the obtainment of structural information in rapid measurements, with a time resolution of the minute or better, is a prized goal. In this work, we show that the use of synchrotron FT-IR spectromicroscopy allows one to extract weak spectral changes, of less than 10(-3) au per minute, in the absorption spectrum of single rod cells following photostimulation. We also show that absorption changes are accompanied by other optical effects due to changes in the real part of the refractive index of the cell. The use of two-dimensional correlation spectroscopy allows us to assign bands to specific molecular chromophores and to extract weak spectral variations in the presence of a noisy background.