Monitoring X-rays exposed and unexposed cell culture media by means of surface-enhanced Raman spectroscopy

Monitoring cell culture media by traditional methods has high costs and requires significant analytical expertise and laboratory space. Surface-Enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) can offer a method for a simple and fast analysis of cell culture media under different conditions. In particular, to examine cell culture media during cell exposure to ionizing radiation deserves particular attention. In this way, useful information on the complex processes occurring during the interaction between cells, cell culture media and radiation can be obtained. We report about a SERS study of the radiation-induced changes on cell culture media that were in contact or not with human cells. SERS measurements were performed by using commercial substrates and a conventional micro-Raman spectroscopy set-up. By employing a suitable data treatment based on "wavelet" denoising algorithm and background subtraction, spectra with clear Raman features were obtained for two cell culture media that were subject to different irradiation treatments. The obtained results evidence that SERS can be used to rapidly identify and monitor chemical changes in cell culture media.