APPLICATION OF MICRO-PIXE CAMERA TO ELEMENTAL ANALYSIS OF A SINGLE CELL

Since the cellular metabolism has not yet been fully elucidated, it is very useful to get the information of elemental distributions in a single cell. We applied a micro-PIXE camera to obtain a picture presented with density of an element in a cell. Our micro-PIXE camera is on the basis of PIXE analysis using micro ion beams with the spot size of less than 1 μ m and the samples can be analyzed in air, so the size and the state of samples are not limited. Here, we analyzed the spatial distributions of elements in a single cell of animal for a medical application. Bovine aortic endothelial cells(BAECs) were cultured in culture medium containing bromodeoxyuridine(BrdU) which is known to be used in the DNA synthesis. We could take the elemental maps of phosphorus, potassium and sulfur which present well a shape of cell and a position of nucleus in this cell. Moreover, we obtained the picture of Br, that is, BrdU. It was found that BrdU was locally concentrated in two or three regions in the nucleus.