Large area synchrotron X-ray fluorescence mapping of biological samples

Large area mapping of inorganic material in biological samples has suffered severely from prohibitively long acquisition times. With the advent of new detector technology we can now generate statistically relevant information for studying cell populations, inter-variability and bioinorganic chemistr...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Published in:Journal of instrumentation 2014-12, Vol.9 (12), p.C12040-C12040
Main Authors: Kempson, I., Smith, E., Gao, M., de Jonge, M., Thierry, B.
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Biological materials
Biological properties
Detectors
Flow cytometry
Imaging
Mapping
Nanoparticles
Synchrotrons
Citations: Items that this one cites
Items that cite this one
Online Access:Get full text
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Large area mapping of inorganic material in biological samples has suffered severely from prohibitively long acquisition times. With the advent of new detector technology we can now generate statistically relevant information for studying cell populations, inter-variability and bioinorganic chemistry in large specimen. We have been implementing ultrafast synchrotron-based XRF mapping afforded by the MAIA detector for large area mapping of biological material. For example, a 2.5 million pixel map can be acquired in 3 hours, compared to a typical synchrotron XRF set-up needing over 1 month of uninterrupted beamtime. Of particular focus to us is the fate of metals and nanoparticles in cells, 3D tissue models and animal tissues. The large area scanning has for the first time provided statistically significant information on sufficiently large numbers of cells to provide data on intercellular variability in uptake of nanoparticles. Techniques such as flow cytometry generally require analysis of thousands of cells for statistically meaningful comparison, due to the large degree of variability. Large area XRF now gives comparable information in a quantifiable manner. Furthermore, we can now image localised deposition of nanoparticles in tissues that would be highly improbable to 'find' by typical XRF imaging. In addition, the ultra fast nature also makes it viable to conduct 3D XRF tomography over large dimensions. This technology avails new opportunities in biomonitoring and understanding metal and nanoparticle fate ex-vivo. Following from this is extension to molecular imaging through specific anti-body targeted nanoparticles to label specific tissues and monitor cellular process or biological consequence.
ISSN:1748-0221
1748-0221
DOI:10.1088/1748-0221/9/12/C12040