Reactive oxygen FIB spin milling enables correlative workflow for 3D super-resolution light microscopy and serial FIB/SEM of cultured cells.

Correlative light and electron microscopy (CLEM) is a powerful tool for defining the ultrastructural context of molecularly-labeled biological specimens, particularly when superresolution fluorescence microscopy (SRM) is used for CLEM. Current CLEM, however, is limited by the stark differences in sample preparation requirements between the two modalities. For CLEM using SRM, the small region of interest (ROI) of either or both modalities also leads to low success rate and imaging throughput. To overcome these limitations, here we present a CLEM workflow based on a novel focused ion beam/scanning electron microscope (FIB/SEM) compatible with common SRM for imaging biological specimen with ultrahigh 3D resolution and improved imaging throughput. By using a reactive oxygen source in a plasma FIB (PFIB) and a rotating sample stage, the novel FIB/SEM was able to achieve several hundreds of micrometer large area 3D analysis of resin embedded cells through a process named oxygen serial spin mill (OSSM). Compared with current FIB mechanisms, OSSM offers gentle erosion, highly consistent slice thickness, reduced charging during SEM imaging, and improved SEM contrast without increasing the dose of post-staining and fixation. These characteristics of OSSM-SEM allowed us to pair it with interferometric photoactivated localization microscopy (iPALM), a recent SRM technique that affords 10-20 nm isotropic spatial resolution on hydrated samples, for 3D CLEM imaging. We demonstrate a CLEM workflow generalizable to using other SRM strategies using mitochondria in human osteosarcoma (U2OS) cells as a model system, where immunostained TOM20, a marker for the mitochondrial outer membrane, was used for iPALM. Owing to the large scan area of OSSM-SEM, it is now possible to select as many FOVs as needed for iPALM and conveniently re-locate them in EM, this improving the imaging throughput. The significantly reduced dose of post-fixation also helped to better preserve the sample ultrastructures as evidenced by the excellent 3D registration between OSSM-SEM and iPALM images and by the accurate localization of TOM20 (by iPALM) to the peripheries of mitochondria (by OSSM-SEM). These advantages make OSSM-SEM an ideal modality for CLEM applications. As OSSM-SEM is still in development, we also discuss some of the remaining issues and the implications to biological imaging with SEM alone or with CLEM.

Ion mobility studies of electronically excited States of atomic transition metal cations: development of an ion mobility source for guided ion beam experiments.

The design of an ion mobility source developed to couple to a guided ion beam tandem mass spectrometer is presented. In these exploratory studies, metal ions are created continuously by electron ionization of the volatile hexacarbonyls of the three group 6 transition metals. These ions are focused into a linear hexapole ion trap, which collects the ions and then creates high intensity pulses of ions, avoiding excessive ion losses resulting from the low duty cycle of pulsed operation. The ion pulses are injected into a six-ring drift cell filled with helium where ions having different electronic configurations can separate because they have different ion mobilities. Such separation is observed for chromium ions and compares favorably with the pioneering work of Kemper and Bowers (J. Phys. Chem.1991, 95, 5134). The results are then extended to Mo(+) and W(+), which also show efficient configuration separation. The source conditions needed for high intensities and good configuration separation are discussed in detail and suggestions for further improvements are also provided.

On the Structural Dichotomy of Cationic, Anionic, and Neutral FeS(2).

Structural and thermochemical aspects of the FeS(2)(+) cation are examined by different mass spectrometric methods and ab initio calculations using density functional theory. Accurate threshold measurements provide thermochemical data for FeS(+), FeS(2)(+), and FeCS(+), i.e., D(0)(Fe(+)-S) = 3.06 +/- 0.06 eV, D(0)(SFe(+)-S) = 3.59 +/- 0.12 eV, D(0)(Fe(+)-S(2)) = 2.31 +/- 0.12 eV, and D(0)(Fe(+)-CS) = 2.40 +/- 0.12 eV. Fortunate circumstances allow a refinement of the data for FeS(+) by means of ion/molecule equilibria, and the resulting D(0)(Fe(+)-S) = 3.08 +/- 0.04 eV is among the most precisely known binding energies of transition-metal compounds. The present results agree with previous experimental findings and also corroborate the computed data for FeS(+) and FeS(2)(+). Ab initio calculations predict a sextet ground state ((6)A(1)) for FeS(2)(+) with a cyclic structure. The presence of S-S and Fe-S bonds accounts for the fact that not only reactions involving the disulfur unit but also sulfur-atom transfer can occur. In contrast, the FeS(2)(-) anion is an acyclic iron disulfide. In the gas phase, neutral FeS(2) may adopt either acyclic or cyclic structures, which are rather close in energy according to the calculations.