Nano-imaging of environmental dust in human lung tissue by soft and hard X-ray fluorescence microscopy

Gianoncelli, Alessandra; Rizzardi, Clara; Salomon, Damien; Canzonieri, Vincenzo; Pascolo, Lorella

doi:10.1016/j.sab.2018.05.019

Cited by 13 publications

(8 citation statements)

References 51 publications

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“…The toxicity mechanisms are clearly related to chemical and physical compositions of nano-dusts and molecular mechanisms driving the body defense or possible related diseases. The micro particles inside the tissues may undergo complex metabolic transformations and the surface properties can be modified by removal and deposition of chemical elements, metals and salts, or by adsorption of macro-molecules such as proteins (Gianoncelli et al 2018). Numerical studies of particle characterizations has been reported from different part of the world, as discussed in Sect.…”

Section: Mechanisms Of Health Impacts Of Nano-dustsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…When suspended in air, smaller airborne particles of dust can be a great risk to the miners' respirable system. It has been proved that the smaller the aerodynamic diameter of the inhaled dust particle, the more likely it will be deposited more deeply in the respirable tract (Prata 2018;Gasparotto et al 2018;Gianoncelli et al 2018;Entwistle et al 2019;Graczyk and Riediker 2019). A dramatic increase of the prevalence of progressive massive fibrosis among working underground coal miners in central Appalachia has been observed in the past decade although stringent regulations have been proposed by MSHA and NIOSH, as shown in Fig.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Respirable nano-particulate generations and their pathogenesis in mining workplaces: a review

Fan

Liu

2021

Int J Coal Sci Technol

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There is a growing concern in mining community about the contribution of nano-particulates to miner’s health. Despite the health influence of respirable dusts and associated lung diseases have been recognized for decades in the mining industry, the nano-scale particulates accompanying with complicated physiochemical properties and their enormous contribution in quantity have been drawing attentions only in recent a few years because of the advancement of nano-science discipline. In this review, we examine the current regulations of dusts exposure and the dominant mass-based monitoring methods to point out the ignorance of nano-particulates in mining industry. The recognized mining-related nano-particulates sources are summarized to identify the mechanically generated finer particulates including particles and aerosols. In addition, the mechanism of adverse health impact on miner with exposure to nano-scale particulates is discussed in a detail to emphasize their substantial detriment as a potential respiratory hazard. Characterization of the complex physiochemical properties of nano-particulates are then summarized and discussed because these properties could be different from regular respirable dusts due to their dramatically increased surface area and particulate counts. The intent of this review is to demonstrate the potential of adverse health effect of nano-particulate on the mine personals throughout the mining cycle and to identify the research gaps of the mine nano-particulate characterization and quantification. We suggest that further understanding of the mining induced nano-particulate properties and their pathogenesis are critical for the future engineering control measure to mitigate the potential health threat for future miners.

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Section: Mechanisms Of Health Impacts Of Nano-dustsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Respirable nano-particulate generations and their pathogenesis in mining workplaces: a review

Fan

Liu

2021

Int J Coal Sci Technol

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“…The number of such studies and their scientific inquiry areas will likely increase and broaden in the near future. We present the results of two studies in this area: nanoscale XRF imaging of environmental dust in human lung by Gianoncelli et al [92] and the high Zn content of Randall's plaque by Carpentier et al [93].…”

Section: Bone Teeth and Internal Organsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gianoncelli et al [92] used human lung tissues collected post-mortem from three patients that lived in urban centers in the north of Italy with no known specific professional exposure. Using standard tissue staining and light microscopy methods, anthracosis (accumulation of carbon in lungs due to exposure to air pollution or inhalation of smoke or coal dust particles) regions were identified and 5-µm thick lung tissue sections were used for XRF mapping.…”

Section: Bone Teeth and Internal Organsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Probing Trace Elements in Human Tissues with Synchrotron Radiation

Gherase

Fleming

2019

Crystals

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For the past several decades, synchrotron radiation has been extensively used to measure the spatial distribution and chemical affinity of elements found in trace concentrations (<few µg/g) in animal and human tissues. Intense and highly focused (lateral size of several micrometers) X-ray beams combined with small steps of photon energy tuning (2–3 eV) of synchrotron radiation allowed X-ray fluorescence (XRF) and X-ray absorption spectroscopy (XAS) techniques to nondestructively and simultaneously detect trace elements as well as identify their chemical affinity and speciation in situ, respectively. Although limited by measurement time and radiation damage to the tissue, these techniques are commonly used to obtain two-dimensional and three-dimensional maps of several elements at synchrotron facilities around the world. The spatial distribution and chemistry of the trace elements obtained is then correlated to the targeted anatomical structures and to the biological functions (normal or pathological). For example, synchrotron-based in vitro studies of various human tissues showed significant differences between the normal and pathological distributions of metallic trace elements such as iron, zinc, copper, and lead in relation to human diseases ranging from Parkinson’s disease and cancer to osteoporosis and osteoarthritis. Current research effort is aimed at not only measuring the abnormal elemental distributions associated with various diseases, but also indicate or discover possible biological mechanisms that could explain such observations. While a number of studies confirmed and strengthened previous knowledge, others revealed or suggested new possible roles of trace elements or provided a more accurate spatial distribution in relation to the underlying histology. This area of research is at the intersection of several current fundamental and applied scientific inquiries such as metabolomics, medicine, biochemistry, toxicology, food science, health physics, and environmental and public health.

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“…Usually a scintillator assisted photomultiplier tube (PMT) or a photodiode will count transmitted photons. However, also diffraction patterns [67][68][69] or undirected secondary radiation, such as secondary electrons [70][71][72] or fluorescence [73][74][75] can be recorded. STXMs are operated inside an (ultra)-high vacuum chamber to reduce unnecessary photon absorption within the atmosphere.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Additive Nano-Lithography with Focused Soft X-rays: Basics, Challenges, and Opportunities

Späth

2019

Micromachines

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Focused soft X-ray beam induced deposition (FXBID) is a novel technique for direct-write nanofabrication of metallic nanostructures from metal organic precursor gases. It combines the established concepts of focused electron beam induced processing (FEBIP) and X-ray lithography (XRL). The present setup is based on a scanning transmission X-ray microscope (STXM) equipped with a gas flow cell to provide metal organic precursor molecules towards the intended deposition zone. Fundamentals of X-ray microscopy instrumentation and X-ray radiation chemistry relevant for FXBID development are presented in a comprehensive form. Recently published proof-of-concept studies on initial experiments on FXBID nanolithography are reviewed for an overview on current progress and proposed advances of nanofabrication performance. Potential applications and advantages of FXBID are discussed with respect to competing electron/ion based techniques. polymer resulting in 3D patterning by radiation chemistry [33,34]. The approach is limited to materials with significantly different absorption cross-sections at the chosen incident photon energies, as in transmission geometry, all layers are exposed to the beam at different degrees of focusing. However, such experiments open a completely novel perspective for complex direct-write nanofabrication. It should be mentioned that during the late 1980s and early 1990s several groups attempted to exploit broad-band synchrotron light [38][39][40][41] as well as the monochromatic X-ray beam of a photon-induced scanning Auger microscope [42,43] for additive manufacturing of metal deposits from metal organic precursors. However, due to limited instrumental capabilities, only spatially extended thin films with an optimum of some 10 µm resolution could be produced [43].FXBID exploits the photon energy-selectivity of synchrotron-based XRL and extends it by the idea of depositing metal nanostructures from suitable precursor gases [21,22]. The use of a STXM setup for these experiments offers several advantages. STXM is a raster-scanning technique which avoids the necessity of shadow masks. According to comparable results from polymer lithography the theoretical minimum feature size of the deposited metal structures is mainly determined by the spot size of the incident beam [36,37]. Recent developments in X-ray optics have pushed this parameter below 10 nm [44,45]. Finally, STXM can be employed for an in-situ analysis of the metallic deposits directly after fabrication by means of resonant imaging and near-edge X-ray absorption fine structure (NEXAFS) spectroscopy to evaluate confinement, growth rates, oxidation state and chemical purity [21,22,46,47]. X-ray magnetic circular dichroism (XMCD) can be used to characterize magnetic deposits with respect to their magnetization and coercivity [48].This review presents some basic principles of X-ray optics and X-ray microscopy as well as X-ray beam dosimetry that are relevant for FXBID experiments. In accordance, limitations, challenges and opportunities of additiv...

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Nano-imaging of environmental dust in human lung tissue by soft and hard X-ray fluorescence microscopy

Cited by 13 publications

References 51 publications

Respirable nano-particulate generations and their pathogenesis in mining workplaces: a review

Respirable nano-particulate generations and their pathogenesis in mining workplaces: a review

Probing Trace Elements in Human Tissues with Synchrotron Radiation

Additive Nano-Lithography with Focused Soft X-rays: Basics, Challenges, and Opportunities

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