X-ray phase microtomography with a single grating for high-throughput investigations of biological tissue

Marie-Christine Zdora; Joan Vila-Comamala; Georg Schulz; Anna Khimchenko; Alexander Hipp; Andrew C Cook; Daniel Dilg; Christian David; Christian Grünzweig; Christoph Rau; Pierre Thibault; Irene Zanette

doi:10.1364/BOE.8.001257

X-ray phase microtomography with a single grating for high-throughput investigations of biological tissue

Biomed Opt Express. 2017 Jan 31;8(2):1257-1270. doi: 10.1364/BOE.8.001257. eCollection 2017 Feb 1.

Authors

Affiliations

¹ Diamond Light Source, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0DE, UK; Department of Physics & Astronomy, University College London, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
² Institute for Biomedical Engineering, ETH Zürich, 8092 Zürich, Switzerland.
³ Biomaterials Science Center, Department of Biomedical Engineering, University of Basel, 4123 Allschwil, Switzerland.
⁴ Helmholtz-Zentrum Geesthacht, 21502 Geesthacht, Germany.
⁵ University College London Institute of Cardiovascular Science, London WC1E 6BT, UK.
⁶ Paul Scherrer Institut, 5232 Villigen PSI, Switzerland.
⁷ Diamond Light Source, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0DE, UK; School of Materials, University of Manchester, Manchester M1 7HS, UK; Department of Otolaryngology, Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine, Chicago, Illinois 60611, USA.
⁸ Department of Physics & Astronomy, University of Southampton, Southampton SO17 1BJ, UK.
⁹ Diamond Light Source, Harwell Science and Innovation Campus, Didcot, Oxfordshire OX11 0DE, UK.

Abstract

The high-throughput 3D visualisation of biological specimens is essential for studying diseases and developmental disorders. It requires imaging methods that deliver high-contrast, high-resolution volumetric information at short sample preparation and acquisition times. Here we show that X-ray phase-contrast tomography using a single grating can provide a powerful alternative to commonly employed techniques, such as high-resolution episcopic microscopy (HREM). We present the phase tomography of a mouse embryo in paraffin obtained with an X-ray single-grating interferometer at I13-2 Beamline at Diamond Light Source and discuss the results in comparison with HREM measurements. The excellent contrast and quantitative density information achieved non-destructively and without staining using a simple, robust setup make X-ray single-grating interferometry an optimum candidate for high-throughput imaging of biological specimens as an alternative for existing methods like HREM.

Keywords: (110.7440) X-ray imaging; (170.3880) Medical and biological imaging; (170.6960) Tomography; (180.7460) X-ray microscopy; (340.7450) X-ray interferometry.