Monitoring and rapid quantification of total carotenoids in Rhodotorula glutinis cells using laser tweezers Raman spectroscopy

Rhodotorula glutinis is known to accumulate large amounts of carotenoids under certain culture conditions, which have very important industrial applications. So far, the molecular mechanism of regulating carotenogenesis is still not well understood. To better understand the carotenogenesis process, it requires methods that can detect carotenogenesis rapidly and reliably in single live cells. In this paper, a method based on laser tweezers Raman spectroscopy (LTRS) was developed to directly detect carotenoids, as well as other important biological molecules in single live R. glutinis cells. The data showed that the accumulation of carotenoids and lipids occurred mainly in the late exponential and stationary phases when the cell growth was inhibited by nutrient limitation. Meanwhile, the carotenoid concentration changed together with the concentration of nucleic acids, which increased in the first phase and decreased in the last phase of the culture. These data demonstrate that LTRS is a rapid, convenient, and reliable method to study the carotenogenesis process in vivo.