Research advances in Raman imaging of single-cell phenotypes in fatty acid metabolism in cancers

The reprogramming of fatty acid metabolism in cancer cells holds significant importance in tumor research. This article focuses on the major applications of Raman imaging of single-cell phenotypes techniques in the study of metabolism in five types of cancer-prostate cancer, breast cancer, glioblastoma, cervical cancer, and colon cancer-at the single-cell level. These applications include noninvasive discrimination of cancer cell phenotypes by distinguishing intracellular fatty acid types, visualization of lipid distribution and differentiation within cancer cells, semi-quantitative assessment of total cellular lipid content levels, and detection of lipid saturation. Raman imaging of single-cell lipid metabolism phenotypes offers exciting new possibilities for tumor research, including advanced imaging capabilities and biorthogonal-labeled Raman Tag. Additionally, the present paper discusses the theoretical foundations and applications of coherent anti-Stokes Raman spectroscopy, stimulated Raman spectroscopy, and novel multimodal single-cell phenotypes chemical imaging in lipid metabolism research, which have opened vast new opportunities for diagnosing and treating cancer.