Assessment of EUV Atom Probe Tomography for Mass Spectral Analysis of Biomolecules
EMSL Project ID
60145
Abstract
A Local Electrode Atom Probe (LEAP) Atom utilizing a pulsed, coherent, extreme ultraviolet (EUV) source will be used for the first time for mass-spectral and 3D atomic-scale reconstruction analysis of biological materials via Atom Probe Tomography (APT). Adapting the new pulsed coherent EUV (~ 42 eV) source to APT offers the fundamental advantage of photoionizing and photo dissociating complex molecular ions into constituent elemental species to enable unequivocal mass spectral analysis and atomic-scale 3D reconstruction imaging, thus aiding efforts at EMSL to develop a bio-atomic imaging capability explicitly described in the EMSL roadmap under the Structural Bioimaging (SB) integrated research platform. This new “EUV APT” system has recently been invented, patented, proven, and characterized at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) Boulder Colorado site [1]. In collaboration with NIST, EMSL will have access to the one-of-a-kind EUV APT instrument to critically evaluate and develop EUV radiation for enhancing APT analysis of biomaterials. Our objectives will be to analyze a series of peptide-based specimens with increasing structural and chemical complexity to critically address how EUV radiation promotes: 1) the photoionization and photodissociation of complex molecular ions into constituent elemental species leading to reduced ambiguity in mass assignments from spectral convolution; 2) enhanced 3D chemical mapping compared to current NUV pulsing for biological and soft organic materials to better enable the implementation of machine learning/artificial intelligence (ML/AI) models designed to extract macromolecular structure. Ultimately, the results of the proposal will provide the knowledge, vision, and foundation necessary towards the future development of bio-APT – a unique APT application capable of analyzing the structure of, and ionic gradients around, individual biomolecules such as proteins in their native hydrated environment with atomic level spatial resolution and part-per-million chemical sensitivity
Project Details
Start Date
2021-07-14
End Date
2023-10-01
Status
Closed
Released Data Link
Team
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