Calcium is a macronutrient that plays in all stages of development of tomato fruit such as cell division, cell metabolism, cell wall formation, and fruit maturation. The Ca concentration in these stages showed a decreasing profile as the fruit developed. Since Ca reaches upper plant tissues through root-to-shoot uptake, its supply is strongly reduced as the xylem loses its functionality in...
Phosphorus (P) and sulfur (S) are some of the essential elements for agriculture and environmental sciences research. The VLS-PGM beamline at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) is one of the few beamlines in the Americas that is built to optimize the delivered flux below 250eV, to access the L-edges of those elements. The beamline endstation has also been improved to perform XANES measurements...
Spatial evaluations are powerful tools in understanding function of structures within complex tissues. Distribution of elements within animal tissues are not commonly performed using X-ray fluorescence and represents an opportunity for expansion. Animal tissues are commonly preserved in formalin-fixed paraffin embedded (FFPE) blocks and large libraries of normal and diseases tissues are...
Infrared (IR) spectroscopy at the Canadian Light Source (CLS) Mid-IR beamline provides a suite of analytical options for investigation of biological samples which include bulk IR, IR imaging, and attenuated total internal-reflectance (ATR) IR-imaging capabilities. Protein, lipids, carbohydrates and other organic molecules possess distinct vibrational band features within the Mid-IR spectrum...
Canola contributes around $30 billion to the Canadian economy each year, from oil processing and as an animal feed due to the high protein content of the meal by-product. Protein and oil occur as discrete bodies in canola seed cells, however, information on the compartmentalization of these discrete bodies (e.g., size, number, arrangement) within cellular ultrastructure to changes in overall...
The foliar fertilisation with zinc (Zn) and manganese (Mn), essential micronutrients on vegetal metabolism, contributes to increasing crop species' productivity. Due to their widespread deficiency in weathered soils, this is particularly important in Brazil, the most important producer of coffee worldwide. Although foliar-based strategies often regard the use of chelates, such as EDTA, their...
The Canadian Light Source (CLS) has four beamlines capable of measuring sulfur and phosphorus X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS): the Industry, Development, Education, Applications, Students (IDEAS) beamline, the Soft X-Ray Microcharacterization Beamline (SXRMB), the Soft X-ray Spectromicroscopy (SM) beamline and the Variable Line Spacing Plane Grating Monochromator (VLS-PGM) beamline. Sulfur...
Physicochemical interactions between soil organic matter (SOM) and iron (Fe) minerals contribute to long-term protection and storage of organic carbon in soils. However, the persistence of Fe-stabilized SOM depends on environmental controls on the redox state and solubility of Fe. In this work, we show that frequent wet-dry cycles in mineral soils result in distinct Fe-SOM interaction...
Ptychography is a lensless X-ray diffraction microscopy technique [1,2,3] in which the sample is scanned at pre-defined positions collecting far-field diffraction patterns at each of these scanning positions. The diffraction patterns along with the information regarding the scan positions are then processed using iterative phase retrieval algorithms resulting in high resolution complex...
MOGNO beamline, from the 4th generation Light Source in Brazil, Sirius, will be focused on high throughput, time resolved experiments and multi-scale analysis. This beamline will work in high energies (22, 39 keV, and 67.5 keV), with a cone beam geometry that enables continuous magnification of the image, from ~55 µm to ~120 nm, known as zoom-tomography. In addition, MOGNO will be equipped...
Discoveries in soil chemistry have benefited human health by enhancing our food, water, and air quality and remediating contaminated soils and waters. Soil chemical principles-based discoveries have been deployed and adopted to solve agricultural and environmental problems, including developing new fertilizer technologies and science-based-management practices to improve fertilizer-use...
The Center for Structural Molecular Biology (CSMB) at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) is a national user facility funded to support and develop the user access and science research program of the Biological Small-Angle Neutron Scattering (Bio-SANS) instrument at the High Flux Isotope Reactor (HFIR). Bio-SANS is dedicated to the analysis of the structure, function and dynamics of complex...
Approximately one third of global land area is covered by high pH, alkaline soils that are deficient in one or more essential elemental nutrients, potentially limiting the productivity of agricultural crops. Nutrient deficiencies, especially iron (Fe), can stem from the insolubility of the metal, preventing their dissolution and limiting bioavailablity. Iron deficiency causes anemia in more...
