Multimodality hard-x-ray imaging of a chromosome with nanoscale spatial resolution

• DOI: 10.1038/srep20112
• Publication Date: 2016-02-05T10:34:41Z
• Authors: Hanfei Yan; Evgeny Nazaretski; Kenneth Lauer; Xiaojing Huang; Ulrich Wagner; Christoph Rau; Mohammed Yusuf; Ian Robinson; Sebastian Kalbfle...; Li Li; Nathalie Bouet; Juan Zhou; Ray Conley; Yong S. Chu
• Keywords: 0303 health sciences; 03 medical and health sciences; Staining and Labeling; Microscopy, Electron, Scanning; Humans; Nanotechnology; Multimodal Imaging; Article; Chromosomes; Cell Line; Platinum

AbstractWe developed a scanning hard x-ray microscope using a new class of x-ray nano-focusing optic called a multilayer Laue lens and imaged a chromosome with nanoscale spatial resolution. The combination of the hard x-ray’s superior penetration power, high sensitivity to elemental composition, high spatial-resolution and quantitative analysis creates a unique tool with capabilities that other microscopy techniques cannot provide. Using this microscope, we simultaneously obtained absorption-, phase- and fluorescence-contrast images of Pt-stained human chromosome samples. The high spatial-resolution of the microscope and its multi-modality imaging capabilities enabled us to observe the internal ultra-structures of a thick chromosome without sectioning it.