Stable isotope probing and Raman spectroscopy for monitoring carbon flow in a food chain and revealing metabolic pathway.

Accurately measuring carbon flows is a challenge for understanding processes such as diverse intracellular metabolic pathways and predator-prey interactions. Combined with stable isotope probing (SIP), single-cell Raman spectroscopy was demonstrated for the first time to link the food chain from carbon substrate to bacterial prey up to predators at the single-cell level in a quantitative and nondestructive manner. Escherichia coli OP50 with different (13)C content, which were grown in a mixture of (12)C- and fully carbon-labeled (13)C-glucose (99%) as a sole carbon source, were fed to the nematode. The (13)C signal in Caenorhabditis elegans was proportional to the (13)C content in E. coli. Two Raman spectral biomarkers (Raman bands for phenylalanine at 1001 cm(-1) and thymine at 747 cm(-1) Raman bands), were used to quantify the (13)C content in E. coli and C. elegans over a range of 1.1-99%. The phenylalanine Raman band was a suitable biomarker for prokaryotic cells and thymine Raman band for eukaryotic cells. A biochemical mechanism accounting for the Raman red shifts of phenylalanine and thymine in response to (13)C-labeling is proposed in this study and is supported by quantum chemical calculation. This study offers new insights of carbon flow via the food chain and provides a research tool for microbial ecology and investigation of biochemical pathways.