Computed tomography of cryogenic cells

Soft X-ray microscopy has resolved 30 nm structures in biological cells. To protect the cells from radiation damage caused by X-rays, imaging of the samples has to be performed at cryogenic temperatures, which makes it possible to take multiple images of a single cell. Due to the small numerical aperture of zone plates, X-ray objectives have a depth of focus on the order of several microns. By treating the X-ray microscopic images as projections of the sample absorption, computed tomography (CT) can be performed. Since cryogenic biological samples are resistant to radiation damage, it is possible to reconstruct frozen-hydrated cells imaged with a full-field X-ray microscope. This approach is used to obtain three-dimensional information about the location of specific proteins in cells. To localize proteins in cells, immunolabeling with strongly X-ray absorbing nanoparticles was performed. With the new tomography setup developed for the X-ray microscope XM-1 installed at the ALS, we have performed tomography of immunolabeled frozen-hydrated cells to detect protein distributions inside of cells. As a first example, the distribution of the nuclear protein male-specific lethal 1 (MSL-1) in the Drosophila melanogaster cell was studied.