Raman spectroscopy combined with multivariate analysis techniques as a potential tool for semen investigation

摘要

Molecular characterization of semen that can be used to provide an objective diagnosis of semen quality is still lacking. Raman spectroscopy measures vibrational modes of molecules, thus can be utilized to characterize biological fluids. Here, we employed Raman spectroscopy to characterize and compare normal and abnormal semen samples in the fingerprint region (400-1800cm~(-1)). Multivariate analysis methods including principal component analysis (PCA) and partial least square-discriminant analysis (PLS-DA) were used for spectral analysis to differentiate between normal and abnormal semen samples. Compared with PCA-LDA analysis, PLS-DA improved the diagnostic results, showing a sensitivity of 77% and specificity of 73%. Furthermore, our preliminary quantitative analysis based on PLS algorithm demonstrated that spermatozoa concentration were relatively well predicted (R~2=0.825). In conclusion, this study demonstrated that micro-Raman spectroscopy combined with multivariate methods can provide as a new diagnostic technique for semen analysis and differentiation between normal and abnormal semen samples.