Abstract
Nuclear microscopy is the use of a finely focussed beam of charged particles to extract structural information from a sample. In biomedicine, the samples may be individual cells or tissue sections. The increasing interest in trace elements has motivated nuclear microscopy of the islets of Langerhans and surrounding tissue in pancreas cryosections from experimental animals. The incitement of these investigations was the possible role of trace elements for insulin secretion and correlations with important elements such as calcium. The regulation of secretion has direct consequence for diabetes. The studies in Uppsala used non-inbred obese-hyperglycemic mice either fed ad libitum, starved 24 and 48 h. The results of these experiments illustrated with elemental maps and multivariate statistical analysis are presented and discussed. Some thoughts about the impact of nuclear microscopy in medicine and trace element biology will also be given.
