Raman spectroscopy combined with deep learning for rapid detection of melanoma at the single cell level

Melanoma is an aggressive and metastatic skin cancer caused by genetic mutations in melanocytes, and its incidence is increasing year by year. Understanding the gene mutation information of melanoma cases is very important for its precise treatment. The current diagnostic methods for melanoma include radiological, pharmacological, histological, cytological and molecular techniques, but the gold standard for diagnosis is still pathological biopsy, which is time consuming and destructive. Raman spectroscopy is a rapid, sensitive and nondestructive detection method. In this study, a total of 20,000 Surface-enhanced Raman scattering (SERS) spectra of melanocytes and melanoma cells were collected using a positively charged gold nanoparticles planar solid SERS substrate, and a classification network system based on convolutional neural networks (CNN) was constructed to achieve the classification of melanocytes and melanoma cells, wild-type and mutant melanoma cells and their drug resistance. Among them, the classification accuracy of melanocytes and melanoma cells was over 98%. Raman spectral differences between melanocytes and melanoma cells were analyzed and compared, and the response of cells to antitumor drugs were also evaluated. The results showed that Raman spectroscopy provided a basis for the medication of melanoma, and SERS spectra combined with CNN classification model realized classification of melanoma, which is of great significance for rapid diagnosis and identification of melanoma.