Modeling and correction of Raman and Rayleigh scatter in fluorescence landscapes

Rayleigh and Raman scatter in fluorescence (excitation-emission) landscapes are a nuisance in two-way and three-way data modeling. We provide a method to clean individual emission spectra. The scatter can be represented accurately by Gaussian peaks, characterized by location, width and height. The analytic signal of interest effectively acts as a background to the scatter peaks. Modeling it locally as a smooth curve, using penalized least squares, allows accurate estimation of the parameters of scatter peaks. Once the peaks are modeled, they can be subtracted from the spectrum, almost completely removing the artifacts. Apart from local smoothness, no assumptions are made about the fluorescence spectra. (C) 2013 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.