Page 149 - Vibrational Spectroscopic Imaging for Biomedical Applications

CHAPTER 5

sFTIR, Raman, and SERS

Imaging of Fungal Cells

Kathleen M. Gough
Department of Chemistry
University of Manitoba
Winnipeg, Manitoba, Canada

Susan G. W. Kaminskyj
Department of Biology
University of Saskatchewan
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan, Canada

5.1 Introduction
In this chapter, we will discuss some of the correlative microscopic
techniques that we have brought to bear on the analysis of fungi,
including saprotrophs, endophytes, and lichen symbionts. The
techniques we will focus on are primarily based on molecular
vibrations, including synchrotron-source Fourier transform infra-
red (sFTIR), Raman, and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy
(SERS). Other chapters in this book also provide introductions to
the fundamentals of vibrational spectroscopy. In an effort to reduce
duplication, we will describe the fundamentals of each method
primarily with respect to the requirements of the fungal samples:
appropriate sample preparations, size, shape, lifestyle, and questions
posed.
The application of FTIR to imaging of biological samples is
now about two decades old; some applications are quite mature
but the protocols are not yet routine. Both FTIR and Raman phenom-
ena are well understood; major advances in the latter are bringing
it into prominence as a highly sensitive molecular imaging meth-
odology. The term “SERS imaging” is applied to broadly different

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