Speaker
Description
Biological X-ray fluorescence microscopy (XFM) has emerged as a powerful tool for investigating the spatial distribution and quantification of trace elements in biological materials. By providing precise elemental distributions with low background and increasingly high resolution, XFM now allows for the study of metals and the roles of essential and toxic elements in biological processes at the subcellular level. The advances in instrumentation, optics and detector capabilities are met with a new challenge. How can we interpret elemental maps without additional structural, molecular or functional information which XFM can rarely provide. Over the past few years, this problem has been further exacerbated by increasingly bright light sources coming online that allow for increasingly higher resolution at increasingly higher scan speed. Soon, higher resolution XFM scans will no longer equate to higher information content unless additional correlative context is provided.
Correlative approaches can integrate XFM scans with complementary techniques such as optical fluorescence microscopy, heavy metal conjugates, lanthanide DNA probes, or organelle targeting metal-nanoparticle particles. Multi- or single modal workflows allow elemental distributions to be linked with cellular ultrastructure or even protein localization for example. Here, we will present an overview on recent advances of work done in our lab as well as by other investigators. We will highlight current methodologies and applications of correlative biological XFM and discuss challenges associated with sample preparation and data integration.