Figure 3. Observation of erythrocyte and H. pylori NCTC11637 strain by synchrotron radiation soft X-ray spectromicroscopy.

(A) Schematic layout of the BL08U beamline. OSA is the order-sorting-aperture. PMT is photomultiplier tube. (B) Dual-energy (707.8 eV and 704 eV) contrast images of H. pylori and iron element. Colored bar on the left side indicates the iron content. From bottom to top, the gradient colors indicate increased iron content. The NCTC11637 strain is shown on the left and the SS1 strain is shown on the right. Two strains appear orange-yellow or light yellow, which means that these H. pylori contained more iron than nearby erythrocytes. (C) Dual-energy (707.8 eV and 704 eV) contrast images of erythrocytes with the iron element. Colored bars on the right side indicate iron content. Type O erythrocyte is on the left and type A erythrocyte is on the right. The color bar represents relative content changes. It has 16 different colors from bottom to top, which correspond the iron element content. For instance, the purple represents lower iron content, and the orange represents higher iron content. From Figure 3C we noticed, before incubation with H. pylori, the iron content is rather high (orange to yellow). However, after incubation with H. pylori, the iron content of erythrocyte is obvious low (purple). Part of the cell membrane of the type A erythrocyte in the right lower corner is damaged.