Correlative imaging of live biological cells with a soft X-ray microscope and a fluorescence microscope

Kado, Masataka; Kishimoto, Maki; Tamotsu, Satoshi*; Yasuda, Keiko*; Aoyama, Masato*; Tone, Shigenobu*; Shinohara, Kunio*

Soft X-ray microscope is a very powerful tool to observe cellular organelles of living biological cells and many works have demonstrated imaging of inner structures of the cells. However the inner structures are very complicated and it is difficult to identify the organelles obtained with the soft X-ray microscopes. We have proposed a hybrid imaging method with a soft X-ray microscope and a fluorescence microscope that is to observe the same biological cells with the both microscopes at the same time. Using the information of the cellular organelles obtained with the fluorescence microscope, inner structures obtained with the soft X-ray microscope are accurately identified. We have observed living biological cells by the hybrid imaging method. Since the soft X-ray microscope has higher spatial resolution than that of the fluorescence microscope, fine structures of the cellular organelles in the living biological cells were discussed.