Deuteration of terminal alkynes realizes simultaneous live cell Raman imaging of similar alkyne-tagged biomolecules.

Alkynes were employed as tags to observe small molecules in cells by Raman microscopy. Herein, simple deuteration was found to shift the vibrational frequency of the alkyne by 135 cm−1. Two-color Raman imaging of D-alkynes and H-alkynes made it possible to distinguish between and observe similar small molecules in live cells.