Methodological challenges of optical tweezers-based X-ray fluorescence imaging of biological model organisms at synchrotron facilities

Abstract

Recently, a radically new synchrotron radiation-based elemental imaging approach for the analysis of biological model organisms and single cells in their naturalin vivostate was introduced. The methodology combines optical tweezers (OT) technology for non-contact laser-based sample manipulation with synchrotron radiation confocal X-ray fluorescence (XRF) microimaging for the first time at ESRF-ID13. The optical manipulation possibilities and limitations of biological model organisms, the OT setup developments for XRF imaging and the confocal XRF-related challenges are reported. In general, the applicability of the OT-based setup is extended with the aim of introducing the OT XRF methodology in all research fields where highly sensitivein vivomulti-elemental analysis is of relevance at the (sub)micrometre spatial resolution level.