Role of Raman spectroscopy and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy in colorectal cancer

Abstract

Colorectal cancer (CRC) is the fourth most common cancer in the United Kingdom and is the second largest cause of cancer related death in the United Kingdom after lung cancer. Currently in the United Kingdom there is not a diagnostic test that has sufficient differentiation between patients with cancer and those without cancer so the current referral system relies on symptomatic presentation in a primary care setting. Raman spectroscopy and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) are forms of vibrational spectroscopy that offer a nondestructive method to gain molecular information about biological samples. The techniques offer a wide range of applications from in vivo or in vitro diagnostics using endoscopic probes, to the use of micro-spectrometers for analysis of biofluids. The techniques have the potential to detect molecular changes prior to any morphological changes occurring in the tissue and therefore could offer many possibilities to aid the detection of CRC. The purpose of this review is to look at the current state of diagnostic technology in the United Kingdom. The development of Raman spectroscopy and SERS in clinical applications relation for CRC will then be discussed. Finally, future areas of research of Raman/SERS as a clinical tool for the diagnosis of CRC are also discussed. Core tip: This review focuses of the current role of Raman spectroscopy and surface enhanced Raman spectroscopy (SERS) in clinical applications of colorectal cancer. This includes a review of the current research into in vivo endoscopic Raman probes, non-destructive analysis of biofluids and the use of SERS in order to detect low concentration analytes that previously could not be detected with Raman spectroscopy. Both the advantages and disadvantages of the technology are discussed along with possible avenues of future research.

Advances in Lipidomics for Cancer Biomarkers Discovery

“…Raman spectroscopy is a type of vibrational spectroscopy that allows to gain structural information through the scattering of incident light [34]. The techniques offer a wide range of applications from basic sciences to endoscopic probes equipped with micro-spectrometers for analysis of biofluids [35].…”

A high-throughput serum Raman spectroscopy platform and methodology for colorectal cancer diagnostics

“…[5][6][7][8][9] Previously, emphasis has been made on the use of Raman spectroscopy for histopathology applications and it has been shown that Raman spectroscopy can be used to accurately differentiate between diseased and healthy tissue in gastrointestinal, oral, breast and brain cancers. 10,11 More recently, there have been studies exploring the potential of Raman spectroscopy to analyse biofluids for disease detection using plasma, serum and urine. [12][13][14] These are more accessible than tissue samples traditionally used to perform Raman analysis.…”

Cancer characterization and diagnosis with SERS-encoded particles

“…This resolution, in addition, can be exploited for the generation of a potentially infinite number of SERS-encoded particles (SEPs) that can be used as contrast agents for real multiplex analysis. During the last 10 years, SERS has been extensively used for the study and characterization of single tumor cells, tumor tissues or even in vivo imaging of tumors (Jenkins et al 2016). Although some strategies based on direct SERS (using "bare" plasmonic nanoparticles with no surface functionalization) (Allain and Vo-Dinh 2002;Baena and Lendl 2004;González-Solís et al 2013;Sha et al 2007) or even normal Raman scattering (Kong et al 2015) have been proposed, nowadays the most promising alternatives rely on the use of SERS-encoded particles to screen, detect and characterize tumor cells and tissues.…”