Construction of Scanning Tunneling Microscope for the Study of Interacting Biological Molecualr Systems and their Preparation

用于研究相互作用生物分子体系的扫描隧道显微镜的构建及其制备

基本信息

批准号：
02558015
负责人：
IKAI Atsushi
金额：
$ 8.9万
依托单位：
Tokyo Institute of Technology
依托单位国家：
日本
项目类别：
Grant-in-Aid for Developmental Scientific Research (B)
财政年份：
1990
资助国家：
日本
起止时间：
1990 至 1992
项目状态：
已结题

项目摘要

WE have developed a scanning tunneling microscope (STM) that works on biological materials under clean and defined conditions. Following the great success of STM is the field of surface science, many attempts have been made to test its use in bio-medical field with limited success. The difficulty lies in both the poor electrical conductivity of thick organic and biological samples and often poorly reproducible results from various research groups. The first problem is inherent to the physical nature of the target material but the second is often the measurement done under less well defined environment such as atmospheric condition with unspecified humidity. The apparatus we developed here has an STM scanning unit in a large chamber where not only the STM operation but also application of wet biological samples on a freshly prepared substrate surface can be done. In this way, there is little possibility that the sample is contaminated with impurity in air. Using this apparatus and new software, we have imaged DNA, proteins, bacteriophages, viruses and cell membranes under clean and well defined conditions. Thick samples such as phages and viruses must be coated with thin layr of metal to be observed by STM.If the thickness of such metal coating is thin enough, we could identify some structural details with the information on the surface topography. We are now in the position to fully apply the completed apparatus to the topographical studies of biological surfaces.

我们已经开发了一种扫描隧道显微镜（STM），该隧道显微镜（STM）在清洁和定义的条件下在生物材料上工作。在STM取得的巨大成功之后，表面科学领域已经进行了许多尝试，以测试其在生物医学领域的使用，并取得了有限的成功。困难在于厚有机和生物样品的不良电导率，以及各个研究组的可再现结果。第一个问题是目标材料的物理性质所固有的，但第二个问题通常是在不确定的环境中进行的测量，例如具有未指定的湿度的大气条件。我们在这里开发的设备在一个大型室内设有一个STM扫描单元，不仅可以进行STM操作，而且还可以在新鲜制备的底物表面上应用湿生物样品。这样，样品几乎没有可能被空气中的杂质污染。使用此设备和新软件，我们在清洁且定义明确的条件下成像了DNA，蛋白质，噬菌体，病毒和细胞膜。诸如噬菌体和病毒之类的厚样品必须用薄金属涂层，以便通过St.观察到。如果这种金属涂层的厚度足够薄，我们可以识别出一些结构细节，并提供有关表面地形的信息。现在，我们可以将完整的设备完全应用于生物表面的地形研究。