Raman and infrared spectroscopy distinguish replicative senescent from proliferating primary human fibroblast cells by detecting spectral differences mainly due to biomolecular alterations.

Cellular senescence is a terminal cell cycle arrested state, assumed to be involved in tumor suppression. We studied four human fibroblast cell strains (BJ, MRC 5, IMR 90 and WI 38) from proliferation into senescence. Cells were investigated by label-free vibrational Raman and infrared spectroscopy, following their transition into replicative senescence. During the transition into senescence, we observed rather similar biomolecular abundances in all four cell strains and between proliferating and senescent cells; however, in the four aging cell strains we found common molecular differences dominated by protein and lipid modifications. Hence, aging induces a change in the appearance of biomolecules (including degradation and storage of waste) rather than in their amount present in the cells. For all fibroblast strains combined, the PLS-LDA model resulted in 75 % and 81 % accuracy for the Raman and IR data, respectively. Within this validation, senescent cells were recognized with 93 % sensitivity and 90 % specificity for the Raman and 84 % sensitivity and 97 % specificity for the IR data. Thus, Raman and infrared spectroscopy can identify replicative senescence on the single cell level, suggesting that vibrational spectroscopy may be suitable for identifying and distinguishing different cellular states in vivo, e.g. in skin.