Université Grenoble Alpes

Here, we present a step-wise protocol for the dispersion of nanomaterials in aqueous media with real-time characterization to identify the optimal sonication conditions, intensity, and duration for improved stability and uniformity of nanoparticle dispersions without impacting the sample integrity.

Lens-free video microscopy enables us to monitor cell cultures directly inside the incubator. Here we describe the full protocol used to acquire and analyze a 2.7 day long acquisition of cultured HeLa cells, leading to a dataset of 2.2 x 10⁶ measurements of individual cell morphology and 10584 cell cycle tracks.

We present a protocol to obtain proteomic signatures of human macrophages and apply this to determination of the impact of a low oxygen environment on macrophage polarization.

Presented here is a protocol for cell culture on silicon nitride membranes and plunge-freezing prior to X-ray fluorescence imaging with a synchrotron cryogenic X-ray nanoprobe. When only room temperature nano-analysis is provided, the frozen samples can be further freeze-dried. These are critical steps to obtain information on the intracellular elemental composition.

This protocol presents a detailed procedure to prepare biological cryosamples for synchrotron-based X-ray absorption spectroscopy experiments. We describe all the steps required to optimize sample preparation and cryopreservation with examples of the protocol with cancer and phytoplankton cells. This method provides a universal standard of sample cryo-preparation.

Structural studies of biomacromolecules by crystallography require high-quality crystals. Here we demonstrate a protocol that can be used by OptiCrys (a fully automated instrument developed in our lab) and/or microdialysis buttons for growing large high-quality crystals based on knowledge of the crystallization phase diagram.

Neutron backscattering spectroscopy offers a nondestructive and label-free access to the ps-ns dynamics of proteins and their hydration water. The workflow is presented with two studies on amyloid proteins: on the time-resolved dynamics of lysozyme during aggregation and on the hydration water dynamics of tau upon fiber formation.