Stem cell technology has attracted considerable attention over recent decades due to its enormous potential in regenerative medicine and disease therapeutics. Studying the underlying mechanisms of stem cell differentiation and tissue generation is critical, and robust methodologies and different technologies are required. Towards establishing improved understanding and optimised triggering and control of differentiation processes, analytical techniques such as flow cytometry, immunohistochemistry, reverse transcription polymerase chain reaction, RNA in situ hybridisation analysis, and fluorescence-activated cell sorting have contributed much. However, progress in the field remains limited because such techniques provide only limited information, as they are only able to address specific, selected aspects of the process, and/or cannot visualise the process at the subcellular level. Additionally, many current analytical techniques involve the disruption of the investigation process (tissue sectioning, immunostaining) and cannot monitor the cellular differentiation process in situ, in real-time. Vibrational spectroscopy, as a label-free, non-invasive and non-destructive analytical technique, appears to be a promising candidate to potentially overcome many of these limitations as it can provide detailed biochemical fingerprint information for analysis of cells, tissues, and body fluids. The technique has been widely used in disease diagnosis and increasingly in stem cell technology. In this work, the efforts regarding the use of vibrational spectroscopy to identify mechanisms of stem cell differentiation at a single cell and tissue level are summarised. Both infrared absorption and Raman spectroscopic investigations are explored, and the relative merits, and future perspectives of the techniques are discussed.

中文翻译：

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用于体外监测干细胞分化的振动光谱

近几十年来，干细胞技术因其在再生医学和疾病治疗方面的巨大潜力而​​备受关注。研究干细胞分化和组织生成的潜在机制至关重要，需要稳健的方法和不同的技术。为了更好地理解和优化分化过程的触发和控制，流式细胞术、免疫组织化学、逆转录聚合酶链反应、RNA 原位杂交分析和荧光激活细胞分选等分析技术做出了很大贡献。然而，该领域的进展仍然有限，因为这些技术只能提供有限的信息，因为它们只能解决进程的特定选定方面，和/或无法在亚细胞水平上可视化该过程。此外，许多当前的分析技术涉及研究过程（组织切片、免疫染色）的中断，并且无法实时监测原位细胞分化过程。振动光谱作为一种无标记、非侵入性和非破坏性的分析技术，似乎是克服许多这些局限性的有希望的候选者，因为它可以为细胞、组织和体液的分析提供详细的生化指纹信息. 该技术已广泛用于疾病诊断，并越来越多地用于干细胞技术。在这项工作中，总结了关于使用振动光谱在单细胞和组织水平上鉴定干细胞分化机制的努力。