Imaging mass spectrometry with nuclear microprobes for biological applications

A mass spectrometric technique using nuclear microprobes is presented in this paper for biological applications. In recent years, imaging mass spectrometry has become an increasingly important technique for visualizing the spatial distribution of molecular species in biological tissues and cells. However, due to low yields of large molecular ions, the conventional secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS), that uses keV primary ion beams, is typically applied for imaging of either elements or low mass compounds. In this study, we performed imaging mass spectrometry using MeV ion beams collimated to about 10 μm, and successfully obtained molecular ion images from plant and animal cell sections. The molecular ion imaging of the pollen section showed high intensities of PO3- ions in the pollen cytoplasm, compared to the pollen wall, and indicated the heterogeneous distribution in the cytoplasm. The 3T3-L1 cell image revealed the high intensity of PO3- ions, in particular from the cell nucleus. The result showed that not only the individual cell, but also the cell nucleus could be identified with the present imaging technique.