Biochemical Imaging of Drug-Delivery Systems

Imaging of cellular architecture provides crucial insight into the details of cellular biology. A widely used technique to image cellular processes is fluorescence microscopy. Although the technique is well established, there are certain difficulties encountered, such as low contrast and photo- bleaching. When utilized as a labelling method for a certain molecule of interest, such fluorophores, or dyes, may potentially alter its biochemical properties, or leach out of the system of interest, if they are utilized to visualize a compartment. Novel optical imaging methods, such as Raman microspectroscopy, have been gaining recognition in their ability to obtain non-invasively the distribution of biochemical components of a sample. Raman spectroscopy in combination with optical microscopy provides a label-free method to assess and image cellular processes, without the use of extrinsic fluorescent dyes. This book demonstrates the vast potential of Raman microspectroscopy to provide a non-invasive and label-free method to image sub-cellular architecture, as well as monitor uptake, intracellular kinetics and dynamics of biocompatible nano-drug-delivery systems.