Author Spotlight: Integrated OPTIR-FISH for Single-Cell Metabolic and Identity Analysis in Complex Environments

The scope of our research is to develop and apply OPTIR-FISH to identify individual cells, and analyze their metabolism at the single-cell level. We aim to understand how individual cells interact within a complex environment, and understand their physiology and roads. Analyzing metabolism at the individual cell level, particularly within the native environment, could provide invaluable insights into revealing the heterogeneous complex activities in biological systems.

However, the concurrent task of differentiating cellular identity, and elucidating metabolism at the single-cell level remains challenging. Our advanced vibrational imaging platform, Optical Photothermal Infrared offers the study of single cell metabolism. At the same time, it is naturally highly compatible with the well established forests in situ hybridization for the identification of microbial species.

Therefore, straightforward integration offers metabolism and identification at the same imaging resolution simultaneously.