Morphological Analysis of Cells by Scanning Electron Microscopy

Abstract

The goal of this study is to identify geometrical differences in the boundary structure of cells using scanning electron microscopy (SEM). A variety of cancer tissues have been demonstrated to possess their own structural identities defined as fractal dimensions when they are grown in vivo. Fractal structure is clearly characterized by recursive self-similarity over scales suggesting that the fractal geometry of cancer could be applicable to cells as well as to tissues. However, the fractal geometry of cancer in a single cell has not been elucidated. Here we investigate the fractal structure of several different cell lines established from normal and cancer tissues using SEM. The data from SEM imaging allowed us to determine the fine boundary structure of human breast cells including MCF10A (normal cell line), MCF7 (weakly invasive cell line), and MDA-MB231 (highly invasive cell line). A box-counting analysis of cell boundaries extracted from the SEM images revealed that each cell line has a diagnostic inclination toward a fractal structure although it is not much different from each other.

Molecular design of interfacial layers based on conjugated polythiophenes for polymer and hybrid solar cells

“…Indeed, the deposition of the ionic polythiophene thin layer (less than 10 nm) decreased the WF of the ITO (4.4 eV versus 4.8 eV for neat ITO), enabling similar performances to TiO x interlayers to be attained, when combined with either a PCDTBT : PC 71 BM or P3HT : PC 61 BM (Table , Entry 4) photoactive layer. However, UV exposure (commonly found in ITO/metal oxide (TiO x or ZnO) interfaces and known as ‘light‐soaking’) is required to achieve a high FF of the order of 60%, as well as a reduced WF on the ITO …”

Imaging cell morphology and physiology using X-rays

“…Protocols for epoxy embedding [30], sectioning of tissue [31] and chemical fixation protocols [32] enabled the early application of electron microscopy to cell imaging [33], and allowed, for example, the first observation of mitochondria, the Golgi apparatus, a structure later called ‘endoplasmic reticulum,’ together with the visualization of viruses and other sub-cellular structures [34–36]. With the establishment of methods for 3D tomographic data acquisition, together with protocols for cryogenic fixation, electron microscopy became - and remains - the gold standard for high-resolution biological imaging [35, 37–39]. The importance of electron microscopy in biology was recently recognized by the Nobel committee, with the 2017 Chemistry prize award to Joachim Frank, Richard Henderson, and Jacques Dubochet for the development of cryogenic electron microscopy (cryo-EM).…”

Revealing and Eliminating the Light‐Soaking Issue in Metal Oxide‐Based Inverted Organic Solar Cells

“…[ 10 ] However, in most cases, the i‐OSCs display S‐shaped kink in J–V curves at first and suffer from the so‐called “light soaking” (LS) problem, [ 11,12 ] wherein the devices gradually maximize open circuit voltage ( V oc ), short circuit current density ( J sc ), and fill factor (FF) upon continuous ultraviolet (UV) exposure. The LS issue has been frequently documented in i‐OSCs adopting metal oxides as ETLs, such as titanium oxides (TiO x or TiO 2 ), [ 13 ] zinc oxide (ZnO), [ 14,15 ] or even aluminum oxide (Al 2 O 3 ). [ 16 ]…”

“…Though intensive research efforts have been devoted to solve the problem, the dominant reason for the LS effect has not been clearly clarified. Explanations such as energetic barriers between ETL and active layers, the WF mismatch between ITO and ETL, [ 17 ] trap filling within the metal oxide layers, [ 13 ] and the oxygen species adsorbed on ITO [ 15,18 ] are proposed to account for this phenomenon. For example, Kim et al.…”