Seminar

Raman Frontiers in Life Sciences: Raman Tweezers Microspectroscopy (RTM) of Single Extracellular Vesicles, Time-Resolved Raman Spectroscopy of Ultrafast Dynamics in Heme Proteins.

Sergei G. Kruglik, PhD

Sergei Kruglik will present two Raman spectroscopic techniques. On one hand, Time-Resolved Raman Spectroscopy that has been developed to study the ultrafast, sub-picosecond structural dynamics of the heme in heme proteins in interaction with gaseous ligands NO, CO, and O2. The second part will be devoted to Raman Tweezers Microspectroscopy (RTM) of extracellular vesicles (EVs) and other bioparticles in aqueous dispersion in the important, but difficult-to-access size range 20 nm – 1 µm. EVs contain a wealth of information on health and disease, possessing a great potential in theranostics of cancer. In addition to «omics» techniques sensitive to individual biomolecules, but in bulk sample, RTM has been developed as a label-free analytical tool, that provides information on global biomolecular composition of a single nanoscale extracellular vesicle. The spectral data treatment using biomolecular components analysis provides information about the major vesicle-constituent biomolecules (proteins, lipids, nucleic acids, carotenoids, sugars). RTM can be considered as a promising method of single-vesicle research. At the moment, it is the only technique available that provides information about the global biomolecular composition of a single or small number of vesicles, thus being capable to unravel their high diversity, which is one of the most significant urgent challenges to overcome. Possible applications include discrimination between different subpopulations of extracellular vesicles, lipid bodies, protein aggregates and viruses, with the ultimate goal of cancer diagnosis.