Has anyone worked on nanoparticles using either X-ray absorption near edge structure (XANES) or Synchrotron radiation? I would appreciate an enlightenment on better techniques out of the two to examine biotransformation/speciation of nanoparticles in plant parts after uptake.
Dear Clement, in fact I guess that hard X-ray techniques are well suited due to their high penetration of matter, this enables you to inspect the interior of the (in your case biological) sample. If the host (i.e. the plant) do not has too much strucutre, X-ray diffraction might help to identify naoparticle that have been uptaken by the sample. But the diffraction patterns of the uptaken material are typically weak (beacuse of the low concentration) and they are superimposed on the intense background of the plant.
So in particular I think that XANES or X-ray absorption spectroscopy in general are well suited for your problem. Because XANES / XAFS are element specific, the plant material just contributes to the background of your spectra. The ability to focus the beam may further help you to identify the positions at which the nanoparticle materials are "stored" by the sample. We did some experiments in the past, where (tomato-) plants were grwon on a contaminated soil (with lead and zinc) and we were able to specify the positions of the zinc, which is not only accumulated at the outer parts of the roots (as may be anticipated), but is also transported into the inner of the plant in low concentrations. An you will see that the fingerprint of the zinc is different in the plants interior, compared to the outer roots.
See ACTA PHYSICA POLONICA A 117 (2010) 357 (I think the paper is open access. Check: http://przyrbwn.icm.edu.pl/APP/PDF/117/a117z251.pdf)
This demonstrates the general capability to do similar experiments! Good luck with your investigations
Dirk
Try XANES or X-ray absorption spectroscopy if your interest is to study the biological spectrum molecules of your plant tissue.
Dear Clement, with EXAFS a metal nanoparticle in biological tissue is readily distinguishable from a metal bound to aminoacids or solvent. Of course to properly characterize the nanoparticle you need to do what Dirk suggests (taking data on the nanoparticle).
An example is in the link.
Ana
The link:
http://www.plantphysiol.org/content/151/2/715.full.pdf+html
@Ana. Madam, I really apprecaite your contribution and also found the paper very useful. I would appreciate getting some more if you have.
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