Study of isotopically labeled substances in living cells by means of Raman microscopy

Unicellular algae (microalgae) are able to produce a number of substances such as starches, oils, proteins, carotenoids, polyphosphates, or crystalline purines directly from inorganic sources by photosynthesis. Different species of microalgae can be used for the economic production of various biomolecules. Due to their autotrophic nature, microalgae are also unique as they can synthesize complex isotopically labeled biomolecules from simple isotopically labeled inorganic substances. Analysis of the chemical composition of microalgae by means of chemical-analytical methods is relatively complex, time-consuming, and laborious. Confocal Raman microscopy represents one of the optical methods by which the chemical composition of microalgae can be determined in situ, i.e. directly within intact cells. This technique combining confocal optical microscopy with Raman spectroscopy enables fast and non- destructive analysis of the chemical composition of substances in the investigated objects, including the effect of isotopic labeling. The chemical composition of the investigated objects is reflected by their Raman spectra, in the case of Raman mapping of microscopic objects by their chemical maps. In this work, a specific case of isotopic labeling was studied, namely the effect of heavy water (D2O) on the deuteration..