In many multi-disciplinary fields of science, such as tissue engineering, where material and biological sciences are combined, there is a need for a tool that combines ultrastructural and chemical data analysis in a non-destructive manner at high resolution. microscopy. In these cases, a network of collagen fibres was observed that had undergone calcification (Oghusi stretch vibration of the carbonate group. Figure 3 Electron micrograph showing a cross-section of CO3-AP coating, Raman spectra were collected at the centre of the cross-section (asterisks). Scale bar represents 20?m. Figure 4 (and and protein could be found, which could not be deduced initially from XRMA data from the same sites. It is clear that, when comparing the ECM spectra to the spectra of CO3-AP coatings, pure collagen type I and the histological observations made by SEM, the extra bands in these spectra are mainly contributed by the presence of collagen type I in the ECM. This was also concluded in studies done on dentin (Kirchner & Edwards 1997; Wang & Spencer 2002), bone (Dopner and revealed that the 142409-09-4 composition of bone is much more homogenous than ECM, possibly because in bone the ECM is compacted to a dense structure. Raman 142409-09-4 imaging of these surfaces showed that, with the increase in surface topography complexity, the interpretation of the generated Raman image becomes increasingly more difficult. The difficulty in analysis can be explained by the fact that the confocality of the system allows for so-called optical sectioning, meaning that scanning of the surface of a sample is done in one focal plane. The focal spot, in turn, has a certain measuring volume and, therefore, the appearance of an electron micrograph, which is a 3D observation, and a Raman micrograph, which is a 2D observation, can be slightly different. An example of this effect is shown in figure 2, where the edges of the polystyrene beads show clearly a lower intensity compared with the centre and also, to some extent, in the Raman micrographs shown of bone (figure 5). Therefore, the information in the Raman image not only reveals chemical, but also topographical data as well, more than could be found by XRMA (see figure DIRS1 5), which adds to structural information obtained by SEM. Future research on bone formation using the above-mentioned combined technique can possibly reveal more detailed information on bone growth in defect areas; the data found in this study suggest that bone-forming cells start producing ECM resembling mature 142409-09-4 bone from an early time point. The use of CRS in a SEM can enlarge the field of applications of sample analysis by electron microscopy to a great extent. Although in this paper we investigated bone ECM, this application can also be used for other sample types where information about molecular composition is necessary. Newly, non-resonant Raman imaging of single cells has been used to map DNA and protein distributions in human cells (Uzunbajakava et al. 2003a,b). This revealed that protein distribution varies with cell type and that the presence of RNA inside the nucleus of HeLA cells could be detected for the first time. However, light microscopy used in these studies in order to study these 142409-09-4 distributions, is extremely limited as the physical properties of light limit the ultimate resolution for observation. Combining CRS with SEM as described in this manuscript could be interesting for studying intracellular processes, such as phagocytosis, cellular differentiation and apoptosis, while at the same time being able to study cell morphology with very high resolution at very high magnifications. Moreover, this technique allows one to pinpoint structures with submicron dimensions by SEM, and then subsequently analyse them by CRS. In addition, Raman imaging in combination with environmental SEM would allow one to image directly, without prior 142409-09-4 labelling of molecules of interest, while in the meantime maintaining the normal functioning of the cells. Acknowledgments This research is supported by the Dutch Technological Sciences Foundation (STW)..