The Bionanoprobe: Synchrotron-Based Hard X-ray Fluorescence Microscopy for 2D/3D Trace Element Mapping
Trace elements, particularly metals, play an important role in a large variety of cellular processes in a biological system. In the context of biological organisms and tissues, the term trace element means that over the entire organisms an element is present at only trace levels, 100ppm or lower. Trace element distribution and content can be analyzed using several techniques, for example, visible light optical fluorescence imaging, energy-dispersive X-ray spectroscopy on an election microscope, synchrotron-based X-ray fluorescence (XRF) imagine,