New technique colors biomolecules in tissue

said braka 7:22 AM
Electron microscopes can zoom in great detail, thus

making the tiniest structures in a cell visible. They are therefore much more precise than , which have been around for much longer. "But an electron  always shows images in gray scales," Giepmans explains. "We have now demonstrated that you can introduce  with this detector. You can compare it with Google Earth—satellite images give a good impression of what a small part of the Earth looks like, but if you colour the roads and cities, it is much easier to find your bearings. Similarly, if you colour molecules, you make it easier to see which biological structures you are looking at."
Identifying elements
The researchers used a detector that was developed for materials science. The Delft team leader Jacob Hoogenboom says, "We purchased the detector to study extremely small structures for the semiconductor industry. We were already working with the UMCG on other projects. They had used comparable techniques to colour in biological samples, but this only produced two colours. So we thought we'd study them with this detector, too." The detector can identify each separate building block of molecules, including nitrogen, phosphorus, sulphur, iron and other metals. Giepmans says, "DNA contains a lot of phosphorus, for instance. If we map the phosphorus in a cell and assign it a colour, we can see where the DNA is."
Application
The researchers applied the technique to their own field of research, type 1 diabetes. "We looked at the  in the pancreas of a rat that was sensitive to type 1 diabetes. We could clearly identify the different cells in the pancreas. Insulin-producing cells acquired a colour from the sulphur, because insulin contains a lot of sulphur, whereas cells that produce glucagon took on another colour, because that hormone contains other elements."


Read more at: https://phys.org/news/2017-04-technique-biomolecules-tissue.html#jCp