Soft X-Ray Microscopy in Biology

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Abstract
Soft X-ray microscopy will give us a unique opportunity to study in situ structure of live biological specimens such as mammalian cells. For the study of in situ structures in biological specimens with transmitted rays at high resolution there are three types of microscopes: Optical, electron, and X-ray microscopes. X-ray microscope should be in the position complementary to other well established microscopes with following advantages: X-ray microscopy has a potential to image thick biological specimens such as whole cells at the resolution higher than optical microscopy in a hydrated condition and at higher penetration depth to the specimens than electron microscopy. We have applied soft X-ray microscopy to observe human chromosomes and mouse macrophages. We found that soft X-ray microscopy has a potential to observe in situ structure of a cell at a resolution of 10 nm from the study of chromosome structures and that it will present a unique information specific to the structure in a hydrated condition from the study of macrophages.

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