Understanding three-dimensional human brain organoids through structural analysis by X-ray scattering

The goal of this experiment is to use X-ray imaging techniques to enhance the understanding of grown brain tissue cultures (“organoids”). To better mimic the 3d nature of tissues, organoids can be grown as spheres. However, standard imaging methods are insufficient to understand their growing process and architecture.
X-ray nano-holotomography (XNH) can reveal the 3d-anatomy of brain organoids, to access the spatial distribution of cells and further characteristics related to tissue-growing. The here-presented XNH-data have been collected at the ID16A-beamline. Being sensitive to the electron density using XNH, we do not only identify cells in general with distinct grayvalues, but have also access to the chromatin packing and through that, potentially, to the sequencing activity. In order to better understand this signal and to access the chromatin conformation in greater detail, we want to do correlative small-angle X-ray scattering (SAXS) on 2d-sections.

本实验旨在借助X射线成像技术，加深对体外培养成熟脑组织类器官（organoids）的认知。为更精准模拟活体组织的三维特性，可将类器官培养为球状结构。但常规成像手段难以充分解析其生长过程与组织结构。X射线纳米层析成像（X-ray nano-holotomography，XNH）能够揭示脑组织类器官的三维解剖结构，从而获取细胞的空间分布以及与组织生长相关的其他特征。本次展示的XNH数据集采集于ID16A光束线。XNH可对电子密度产生响应，因此不仅能通过独特的灰度值识别各类细胞，还可获取染色质的包装状态，进而有望推断测序活性。为进一步解析该信号并更细致地获取染色质构象信息，我们计划对二维切片开展关联小角X射线散射（small-angle X-ray scattering，SAXS）实验。