Confocal Raman microspectral imaging (CRMI) of murine stem cell colonies

Confocal Raman micro-spectral imaging (CRMI) is a relatively novel technique for the construction of label-free images of biological entities, such as cells or tissue sections. This method utilizes thousands of spatially resolved Raman spectra, and sophisticated image analysis algorithms, to construct images which are based strictly on the inherent biochemical abundance contrast afforded by Raman microscopy. Here, we apply this methodology to monitor the very early communication processes that occur in a growing stem cell colony, yielding information on biochemical composition during development processes of the early stages of embryogenesis.