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.

我们开发了一种扫描隧道显微镜 (STM)，可在清洁和规定的条件下研究生物材料。继STM在表面科学领域取得巨大成功之后，人们对其在生物医学领域的应用进行了许多尝试，但成效有限。困难在于厚的有机和生物样品的导电性差，而且各个研究小组的结果往往重现性差。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太明确的环境下进行的测量，例如具有未指定湿度的大气条件。我们在这里开发的设备在一个大室中有一个 STM 扫描单元，不仅可以进行 STM 操作，还可以在新制备的基底表面上进行湿生物样品的应用。这样，样品被空气中的杂质污染的可能性就很小。使用该设备和新软件，我们在干净且明确的条件下对 DNA、蛋白质、噬菌体、病毒和细胞膜进行了成像。诸如噬菌体和病毒之类的厚样品必须涂有一层薄薄的金属才能通过STM进行观察。如果这种金属涂层的厚度足够薄，我们就可以通过表面形貌的信息来识别一些结构细节。我们现在能够将完整的设备完全应用于生物表面的地形研究。