Scientists Take First X-ray Portraits of Living Cyanobacteria at the LCLS
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[url]https://www6.slac.stanford.edu/news/2015-02-11-scientists-take-first-x-ray-portraits-living-bacteria-lcls.aspx[/url]
[media]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FRDpMc5PtUQ[/media]
[QUOTE]Technique Could Allow Study of Viral Infections, Cell Division and Photosynthesis in New Detail
February 11, 2015
Menlo Park, Calif. — Researchers working at the Department of Energy’s SLAC National Accelerator Laboratory have captured the first X-ray portraits of living bacteria.
This milestone, reported in the Feb. 11 issue of Nature Communications, is a first step toward possible X-ray explorations of the molecular machinery at work in viral infections, cell division, photosynthesis and other processes that are important to biology, human health and our environment. The experiment took place at SLAC’s Linac Coherent Light Source (LCLS) X-ray laser, a DOE Office of Science User Facility.
[B]“We have developed a unique way to rapidly explore, sort and analyze samples, with the possibility of reaching higher resolutions than other study methods[/B],” said Janos Hajdu, a professor of biophysics at Uppsala University in Sweden, which led the research. “This could eventually be a complete game-changer.”
The technique can capture about 100 images per second, amassing many millions of high-resolution X-ray images in a single day. This speed allows sorting and analysis of the inner structure and activity of biological particles on a massive scale, which could be arranged to show the chronological steps of a range of cellular activities.
In this way, the technique merges biology and big data, said Tomas Ekeberg, a biophysicist at Uppsala University. “You can study the full cycle of cellular processes, with each X-ray pulse providing a snapshot of the process you want to study,” he said.
Hajdu added, “[B]One can start to analyze differences and similarities between groups of cellular structures and show how these structures interact: What is in the cell? How is it organized? Who is talking to whom?[/B]”
While optical microscopes and X-ray tomography can also produce high-resolution 3-D images of living cells, LCLS, researchers say, could eventually achieve much better resolution – [B]down to fractions of a nanometer, or billionths of a meter, where molecules and perhaps even atoms can be resolved.[/B]
LCLS is working with researchers to improve the technique and upgrade some instruments and the focus of its X-rays as part of the LCLS Single-Particle Imaging initiative, formally launched at SLAC in October in cooperation with the international scientific community. [B]The initiative is working toward atomic-scale imaging[/B] for many types of biological samples, including living cells, by identifying and addressing technical challenges at LCLS.
In addition to researchers from Uppsala University and SLAC’s LCLS, other contributors were from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory; DESY, the European XFEL, PNSensor, Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics and University of Hamburg, in Germany; University of Rome Tor Vergata; University of Melbourne in Australia; Kansas State University; and National University of Singapore. The work was supported by the Swedish Research Council, the Knut and Alice Wallenberg Foundation, the European Research Council, the Röntgen-Ångström Cluster, and the Olle Engkvist Byggmästare Foundation. The experiment was also made possible by the Max Planck Society, which supported the development and operation of the CAMP instrument at LCLS.[/QUOTE]
This is the same lab as the Transition State scientists right?
[QUOTE=James xX;47167613]This is the same lab as the Transition State scientists right?[/QUOTE]
It appears so. Different technique though, this probes atomic positions through X-ray diffraction while the transition state project probed occupancy of electronic states.
Gotta be careful if every marvel comics ever was right, who knows what the largest non-nuclear x-ray source at our disposal can do to cyanobacteria
[QUOTE=Sableye;47169552]Gotta be careful if every marvel comics ever was right, who knows what the largest non-nuclear x-ray source at our disposal can do to cyanobacteria[/QUOTE]
...kill a few?
That's pretty damn cool. (side note to anyone who may be confused, I was, maybe no one else is... maybe I'm just an idiot) What appears to make this "better" than traditional methods is that while the bacteria are still destroyed (shown by a rather comical animation on their site, I was hoping that by some voodoo that exposure to high energy x-rays wouldn't annihilate the cells) They essentially spray a group of bacteria through a test chamber and blast them with super short bursts of x-rays that undergo diffraction and show up on a detection array. I guess since they use a spray gun type thing that they don't need to treat or kill the bacteria before hand, which limits what data you can take (spraying might give a thin yet even enough distribution so that dyes are unnecessary). Very cool none the less, though I doubt the whole "atomic precision" that they wish to achieve.
There is a reason that electron beams are used in high precision microscopy, x-rays typically have wavelengths longer than atoms (making it difficult for them to actually fit in between atoms and by that diffract). X-rays can have smaller wavelengths, but then you tend to dramatically increase their energy, which at that point you are more likely to forcibly remove what ever you were hoping to measure without any meaningful measurement taking place.
Also its even cooler because its a freaking x-ray laser
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