Cholesterol: Tiny Molecule, Big Impact

Yeager, Ashley

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https://hdl.handle.net/2142/89939 Copy

Description

Title

Cholesterol: Tiny Molecule, Big Impact

Author(s)

Yeager, Ashley

Contributor(s)

Kraft, Mary L.

Issue Date

2016-04

Keyword(s)

Chemical and Biomolecular Engineering

Abstract

Cholesterol is found in every cell of the human body. It plays a role in heart disease, atherosclerosis, diabetes, cancer, and so on, touching nearly every field of medicine. I use cutting-edge chemical imaging technology to map the intricate cholesterol distribution within cells to identify its locations. Visualizing cholesterol is the first step in understanding the much larger, complex role of cholesterol and how it might change in the diseased state. I first feed cells cholesterol labeled with a rare isotope of oxygen. Then I use high resolution secondary ion mass spectrometry to detect the isotope-enriched signals that are characteristic of the labeled cholesterol molecules. The intensities of the cholesterol-specific signals detected at each location are used to create an image of the cholesterol distribution. This image shows the cholesterol distribution within a 10 m x 10 m x 2 m internal section of cell. It was created by re-imaging the same cell area thousands of times. Because a small amount of material is sputtered from the sample each time an image is acquired, each new image was acquired at a slightly deeper position inside the cell. These images were stacked and aligned to create this 3-dimensional rendering.

Type of Resource

• text
• image

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http://hdl.handle.net/2142/89939

Copyright and License Information

Copyright 2016 Ashley Yeager

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