Discrimination between oral cancer and healthy cells based on the adenine signature detected by using Raman spectroscopy

Abstract We report the detection of oral cancer cells using Raman spectroscopy as a noninvasive diagnostic tool. Gold nanoparticles, synthesized by using sodium citrate as a reducing agent, were used as surface‐enhanced Raman scattering substrates to detect human oral squamous cell carcinoma cell lines (SAS and SCC4) with fibroblasts cell lines as the control. We have observed the characteristic Raman signal of adenine at 735 cm −1 , which indicates the oral cancer from nucleic acid. The result showed that there were significant differences ( p < .05) between oral cancer cell and normal fibroblast cell lines. To prove that adenine is a robust biomarker for cancer cells, we have also compared the Raman spectra of esophageal cancer (CE48T and CE81T) and normal (Het‐1A) cells. Significant differences ( p < .05) were also observed between esophageal cancer and normal cells. The detection of adenine Raman signal from cell lines has been proven to be potential to establish a highly distinguishable Raman diagnostic method for cancer detection.