Name: preparing adherent cells for x-ray fluorescence imaging by chemical fixation
Uploaded: 2015-03-12T13:00:00
Description: Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Preparing Adherent Cells for X-ray Fluorescence Imaging by Chemical Fixation at JoVE.com

The authors acknowledge Stefan Vogt for his assistance in the fitting of the representative data shown in this paper, and helpful discussions. The authors also acknowledge Chris Jacobsen for his support to Q. J. 
Use of the Advanced Photon Source, beamlines 2-ID-E and 8-BM-B, at Argonne National Laboratory was supported by the U. S. Department of Energy, Office of Science, Office of Basic Energy Sciences, under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357.

1. Preparation of Instruments, Substrates, Culture Media and Dishes
<ol>
	<li>Handling of Silicon Nitride (Si3N4) windows.
	<ol>
		<li>Open the capsule slightly by squeezing one end containing the window in such a way as to not squeeze the window itself, while rotating the other end of the capsule with the other hand.</li>
		<li>Check a pair of reverse, fine-tipped tweezers under stereomicroscope to make sure there are no adhesive, gaps or bends at the tip. Otherwise, the windows may be broken by ...

X-ray fluorescence imaging is useful in many fields, including geosciences, materials science, and chemical biology26-34. Advances in synchrotron X-rays, and their focusing, have produced very high-intensity beams. Focused X-ray beams sufficient to excite the endogenous metals in cells now exist, producing signal that can be measured with currently available silicon drift detector technology. And studying the chemical biology of metals in the cell is one application in particular that makes use of many of the ...

X-ray fluorescence imaging allows for both the identity and quantity of elements present in a sample to be spatially resolved. Incident X-rays, of an energy selected to be greater than the electron binding energy of the heaviest element of interest, overcome the binding energy of inner-shell electrons to the nucleus1. This creates a &#8216;hole&#8217; in the electron shell. As higher-energy electrons fall down into these holes, fluorescent X-rays are emitted whose wavelength is dependent on the energy separation of those orbitals. Since the energy spacing of the orbitals is characteristic of a given element, the X-ray fluorescence emission also has characteristic wavelengths, dependent on the element. It is this emission at a characteristic wavelength that allows the identification of the elements present. Calibration of the fluorescence intensity allows the quantitation of the elements present.
X-ray fluorescence microscopy (XFM) has become increasingly utilized, partly due to the development of very brilliant X-ray synchrotron sources, such as those at Spring-8 in Japan, the European Radiation Synchrotron Facility (ESRF) in France, and the Advanced Photon Source (APS) in the US2. These sources provide very high intensity X-ray beams. At the same time, improvements in X-ray optics, such as zone plate technology, allowed the focusing of these beams to sub-micron spots, albeit rather inefficiently3. With very high-intensity beams, even a relatively small amount of light that can be focused is sufficient to excite the endogenous metals in cells, producing signal that can be measured with currently available detector technology. Thus, studying the chemical biology of metals in the cell is one application in particular that makes use of many of the recent developments in this technique4-10.
There are many critical factors to be considered while applying XFM to investigate the elemental distribution and quantification of cultured mammalian cells or other biological samples. Firstly, the sample needs to be kept intact, both structurally and with respect to its elemental composition, in order for the measurement to be meaningful. Secondly, the sample must also be preserved in some way so that it is hardy to the radiation damage that can be caused by a focused X-ray beam. One way that a sample can meet both of these criteria at once is to be rapidly frozen into a vitreous, amorphous ice11,12. Rapid freezing is often achieved through various cryopreservation techniques such as plunge freezing or high pressure freezing13-16. It is generally accepted that cryopreservation preserves overall cellular architecture and chemical compositions in biological samples as close to native state as possible. Chemical fixation, on the other hand, due to the slow and selective penetration of fixatives into cells and tissues as well as subsequent changes in membrane permeability, may allow various cellular ions especially the diffusible ions such as Cl, Ca and K to be leached, lost or relocated, thus rendering investigation of these elements suboptimal17-19. Despite the clear advantage of cryo-fixation over chemical fixation in general, for adherent mammalian cells in particular, cryopreservation has various limitations20-23. The most obvious one is that not every research lab has easy access to cryopreservation instruments. Most current high pressure freezers or even plunge freezers are costly and owned only by a subset of cryo facilities, which may be far from where cells are incubated. The benefit of cryopreservation might be traded for the disadvantage of travel stress placed on the cells. Thus, while cryopreservation is surely the most rigorous way to preserve samples for X-ray fluorescence analysis, it is certainly not the most accessible to all researchers under all circumstances; nor is it always essential&#160;&#8212; if the metals of interest are tightly bound to fixable macromolecules, and the resolution at which the sample will be imaged is greater than the damage to the ultra-microstructure that might occur during drying. Mindful of the caveats24, chemical fixation and drying may be a suitable choice.
Other factors in a successful X-ray fluorescence imaging experiment include proper analysis. X-ray fluorescence imaging is fundamentally X-ray fluorescence emission spectroscopy combined with raster-scanning to provide spatial resolution. The X-ray fluorescence emission spectra collected contain a combination of overlapping emission peaks, background, and the elastic and inelastic scattering peaks of the incident beam. Software that enables the de-convolution of these contributions, and the fitting of the emission peaks, has been a critical development to this field25. Also, the development and commercial distribution of thin-film standards of known composition, used to calibrate fluorescence intensity relative to material quantity, has also been very important.
This protocol provides a description of the preparation of adherent cells by chemical fixation and air drying. A vital step in this process is the growth of the cells on the silicon nitride windows, which often do not adhere well, making gentle rinsing in a particular fashion key to success.

<table border="0" cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" width="924">
	<tbody>
		<tr height="231">
			<td height="231" style="height:231px;width:216px;">silicon nitride windows</td>
			<td style="width:423px;">Silson Ltd/J B J Business Park/Northampton Rd, Northampton NN7 3DW, United Kingdom</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">No part numbers available. Order by size. Membrane size: 1.5 mm x 1.5 mm.&#160; Thickness 500 nm.&#160; Frame size: 5 mm x 5 mm.&#160; Frame thickness: 200 &#181;m</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">Alternate source: SPI Supplies / Structure Probe, Inc.West Chester, PA</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="63">
			<td height="63" style="height:63px;width:216px;">reverse tweezers</td>
			<td style="width:423px;">Electron Microscopy Sciences, P.O. Box 550, 1560 Industry Road, Hatfield, PA 19440, Tel: 215-412-8400, Toll Free: 800-523-5874, Fax: 215-412-8450</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">78520-5X</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">EMS 5X, NC &#8211; Ultra Fine Tweezers</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="63">
			<td height="63" style="height:63px;width:216px;">rubber grid mat</td>
			<td style="width:423px;">Electron Microscopy Sciences, P.O. Box 550, 1560 Industry Road, Hatfield, PA 19440, Tel: 215-412-8400, Toll Free: 800-523-5874, Fax: 215-412-8450</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">71170</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">Round Grid Mat</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="63">
			<td height="63" style="height:63px;width:216px;">acetic acid</td>
			<td style="width:423px;">Sigma-Aldrich, 3050 Spruce St., St. Louis, MO 63103, Tel: 800-325-3010, Fax: 800-325-5052</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">338826</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">trace metals grade concentrated acetic acid</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="42">
			<td height="42" style="height:42px;width:216px;">PIPES buffer</td>
			<td style="width:423px;">Sigma-Aldrich, 3050 Spruce St., St. Louis, MO 63103, Tel: 800-325-3010, Fax: 800-325-5052</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">P6757</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">solid PIPES buffer</td>
		</tr>
		<tr height="63">
			<td height="63" style="height:63px;width:216px;">formaldehyde stock solution</td>
			<td style="width:423px;">Electron Microscopy Sciences, P.O. Box 550, 1560 Industry Road, Hatfield, PA 19440, Tel: 215-412-8400, Toll Free: 800-523-5874, Fax: 215-412-8450</td>
			<td style="width:119px;">RT 17113</td>
			<td style="width:167px;">10 x 10mL ampules of 20% aqueous paraformaldehyde</td>
		</tr>
	</tbody>
</table>

preparing adherent cells for x-ray fluorescence imaging by chemical fixation

X-ray fluorescence imaging allows us to non-destructively measure the spatial distribution and concentration of multiple elements simultaneously over large or small sample areas. It has been applied in many areas of science, including materials science, geoscience, studying works of cultural heritage, and in chemical biology. In the case of chemical biology, for example, visualizing the metal distributions within cells allows us to study both naturally-occurring metal ions in the cells, as well as exogenously-introduced metals such as drugs and nanoparticles. Due to the fully hydrated nature of nearly all biological samples, cryo-fixation followed by imaging under cryogenic temperature represents the ideal imaging modality currently available. However, under the circumstances that such a combination is not easily accessible or practical, aldehyde based chemical fixation remains useful and sometimes inevitable. This article describes in as much detail as possible in the preparation of adherent mammalian cells by chemical fixation for X-ray fluorescent imaging.

The ability of X-ray fluorescence imaging to provide information about biological samples is contingent upon these samples being prepared in such a way that they are robust to radiation damage on the time-scale of the experiment, and yet their chemical and structural features are well preserved. In viewing the result of a sample that has been prepared as described above and imaged, it is possible to see that there is variation in the elements present &#8212; indicating that fixation preserved these aspects of the cell (<...

Watch this Scientific Journal Video about Preparing Adherent Cells for X-ray Fluorescence Imaging by Chemical Fixation at JoVE.com

Preparing Adherent Cells for X-ray Fluorescence Imaging by Chemical Fixation

Here, we present a protocol on how to determine the quantity and distribution of metals in a sample using synchrotron X-ray fluorescence. We focus on adherent cells, and describe the chemical fixation method to prepare this sample. We then describe how to mount and image the sample using synchrotron X-rays.

X-ray fluorescence imaging allows us to non-destructively measure the spatial distribution and concentration of multiple elements simultaneously over ...

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