Chemical biology news from across RSC Publishing.
3D biological metal detection
08 May 2008
The water flea is the testbed for a non-destructive 3D imaging method that pinpoints metals in vivo.
Laszlo Vincze, from Ghent University, Belgium, and his colleagues in Belgium, Hungary and Germany have combined x-ray techniques to allow them to detect metal ions and their locations in biological samples - including living systems.
Elementary: x-ray techniques reveal the metal distribution in the water flea Daphnia magna
Vincze explains the techniques' advantages: 'Thanks to the highly penetrating character of x-rays, a sample can be investigated in three dimensions in an essentially non-destructive manner, leaving most - if not all - other analytical techniques behind. Owing to recent advances in x-ray science, imaging of transition metal distributions with micrometre to nanometre spatial resolution and with parts per billion sensitivity is becoming possible.'
Vincze warns that although the techniques are not immediately destructive, there are other issues to consider. 'With biological imaging, the problem of radiation damage is one of the most challenging aspects of future scanning x-ray fluorescence measurements,' he says. Nevertheless, he adds that he can imagine the combined techniques being used in a wide variety of disciplines. 'We expect to see a rapid evolution towards in situ elemental imaging on the nanoscopic scale in various areas, including earth and environmental science, material science, archaeology and functional biology,' he says.
Link to journal article
A combination of synchrotron and laboratory X-ray techniques for studying tissue-specific trace level metal distributions in Daphnia magna
B. De Samber, R. Evens, K. De Schamphelaere, G. Silversmit, B. Masschaele, T. Schoonjans, B. Vekemans, C. R. Janssen, L. Van Hoorebeke, I. Szalóki, F. Vanhaecke, G. Falkenberg and L. Vincze, J. Anal. At. Spectrom., 2008, 23, 829
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