NanoSIMS for biological applications: Current practices and analyses

Abstract

Secondary ion mass spectrometry (SIMS) has become an increasingly utilized tool in biologically relevant studies. Of these, high lateral resolution methodologies using the NanoSIMS 50/50L have been especially powerful within many biological fields over the past decade. Here, the authors provide a review of this technology, sample preparation and analysis considerations, examples of recent biological studies, data analyses, and current outlooks. Specifically, the authors offer an overview of SIMS and development of the NanoSIMS. The authors describe the major experimental factors that should be considered prior to NanoSIMS analysis and then provide information on best practices for data analysis and image generation, which includes an in-depth discussion of appropriate colormaps. Additionally, the authors provide an open-source method for data representation that allows simultaneous visualization of secondary electron and ion information within a single image. Finally, the authors present a perspective on the future of this technology and where they think it will have the greatest impact in near future.

Kleptoplastidic benthic foraminifera from aphotic habitats: insights into assimilation of inorganic C, N and S studied with sub‐cellular resolution

“…Here we studied the species Nonionellina labradorica (Dawson, 1860) living in total darkness within the sediments in the Gullmar Fjord, Sweden; where ammonium pore water concentrations can varied from 0.7 to 20 μM in the first four centimetres of the sediment (Brandsma et al ., ) and where sulfate concentration is situated around 26–28 mM (Goldberg et al ., ). We combined ultrastructural analyses, which were executed with a transmission electron microscope (TEM), correlated with nanometre scale secondary ion mass spectrometry (NanoSIMS) imaging (Hoppe et al ., ; Nuñez et al ., ) to localize isotopically labelled 15 N, 13 C and 34 S compounds at a sub‐cellular level and to correlate the elemental isotopic composition with ultrastructural features of N. labradorica . This TEM‐NanoSIMS analysis has revealed the fate of isotopically labelled compounds in diverse marine microorganisms (Finzi‐Hart et al ., ; Pernice et al ., ; Kopp et al ., ; ; Raina et al ., ), including foraminifera (Nomaki et al ., ; LeKieffre et al ., ; ).…”

GGR Biennial Critical Review: Analytical Developments Since 2014

“…, Nuñez et al . ). The development of a new primary ion source, the Hyperion RF plasma (built by Oregon Physics), replacing the duoplasmatron, has been a great improvement for NanoSIMS, and this new source has been installed in several large geometry SIMS facilities in the last year (Liu et al .…”

“…Most of NanoSIMS applications involve isotopic imaging of geological and biological samples. Several reviews of the application of NanoSIMS in cosmochemistry and biological geochemistry have been published (Hoppe et al 2013, Mueller et al 2017, Nuñez et al 2018. The development of a new primary ion source, the Hyperion RF plasma (built by Oregon Physics), replacing the duoplasmatron, has been a great improvement for NanoSIMS, and this new source has been installed in several large geometry SIMS facilities in the last year (Liu et al in press).…”

Boron‐Containing Probes for Non‐optical High‐Resolution Imaging of Biological Samples

“…[4] Such probes have been optimized for several decades and perform satisfactorily.P robes for SIMS have been less researched. [10][11][12] At the same time,ithas been noted that gold particles appear to modify the sample ionization in their surroundings,f or example for CN À ions. One could in principle,u se goldlabeled antibodies as in EM.…”

“…They have been used successfully in af ew publications, [6,7] and gold or platinum deposits have also been analyzed, [8,9] especially in tumors,i nr elation to tumor therapy approaches.However,all of the SIMS analyses of gold have been based on Au À ions since Au + is difficult to measure owing to its very poor ionization characteristics. [10][11][12] At the same time,ithas been noted that gold particles appear to modify the sample ionization in their surroundings,f or example for CN À ions. [7] Therefore,e fforts are needed for generating new probes,especially for the positive ion domain.…”