Raman spectroscopic investigations on optical trap induced deoxygenation of red blood cells

Sunita Ahlawat, Nitin Kumar, Raktim Dasgupta, Ravi Shanker Verma, Abha Uppal and Pradeep Kumar Gupta

Raman spectroscopic investigations on the oxygenation status of optically trapped red blood cells show that the cellular site in the trap beam is more deoxygenated compared to the rest of the cell, and the level of deoxygenation increases with an increase in the trap beam power. These observations and the changes in the Raman spectrum of hemoglobin solution as a function of the trapping beam power suggest that observed deoxygenation may be due to photodissociation of oxygen from hemoglobin at increased trapping power.

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