Ion irradiation in liquid of μm3 region for cell surgery

Abstract

We present here a cell surgery scheme involving selective inactivation or disruption of cellular structures. Energetic ions are injected into a cell through a tapered glass capillary like a microinjection method. A slight but essential difference from microinjection is that a thin window is prepared at the outlet so that no liquid material can flow in or back through the outlet while still allowing energetic ions to penetrate into the cell. An ϳMeV He ion beam from such a capillary having 10 m outlet diameter inactivated a selected volume ͑ϳ m 3 ͒ of fluorescent molecules located in a HeLa cell nucleus.

Focusing of charged particle beams with various glass-made optics

“…Recently, glass capillary with a sub-micron-thick glass lid was introduced to realize the irradiation of wet samples, especially living cells [19,20]. In the experiment, 4 MeV He 2+ ions were injected into liquid scintillator and the scintillation volume, which corresponds to the range and struggling of the ions, showed good agreement with a simulation by SRIM-2006 [31].…”

“…With a beam energy of 4 MeV at the capillary entrance, photobleaching of only part of the cell nucleus was successfully observed [20]. By inserting a capillary into the cell just like a microinjection method, "surgery" within an arbitrary region of a cell becomes possible.…”

“…It is then an interesting question whether various charged particles are guided and focused by a tapered single capillary. We briefly describe here how slow HCI's [16][17][18], MeV ions [19,20], and positive/negative muons [21] are really focused by a tapered single glass capillary (tube).…”

Guiding of a Slow Positron Beam with a Glass Capillary

“…A thin glass wall can be put at the exit of a capillary. Hence, we can irradiate the focused beam to samples which can not be set in vacuum like living human cells [5]. In addition, this technique allows us to construct the focusing system small with low cost.…”

Propagation of visible light through tapered glass capillaries for microbeams

“…Micrometer-sized ion beams produced by tapered glass capillaries are available for cell irradiations to investigate radiation effects and biological responses [1,2]. The advantages of this method are the confinement of large energy deposition within a small volume, an easy positioning of the beam spot on the target, and so on.…”