Live cell imaging with a soft X-ray microscope using a laser-plasma soft X-ray source

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

no journal, , 

We have developed a laser-plasma soft X-ray microscope composed of an intense short pulsed soft X-ray source and a contact microscopy system in which soft X-rays are irradiating onto biological cells directly cultivated on a recording media, an X-ray photo resist, and succeeded in observing inner structures of living biological cells. Using a fluorescence microscope with the soft X-ray microscope to observe the same biological cells at the same time, accurate identification and high resolved observation of cellular organelles have been achieved such as inner structure of Leydig cells from mouse testis, structural deformation of apoptotic HeLa S3 nuclei and mouse immune cells. In the case of the immune cells we have found structural changes possibly attributed to the activation of immune function.