Figure - PMC

Skip to main content

An official website of the United States government

Here's how you know

Here's how you know

Official websites use .gov
A .gov website belongs to an official government organization in the United States.

Secure .gov websites use HTTPS
A lock ( ) or https:// means you've safely connected to the .gov website. Share sensitive information only on official, secure websites.

View full-text article in PMC

. 2020 Jan 14;10:261. doi: 10.1038/s41598-019-57136-w

Search in PMC
Search in PubMed
View in NLM Catalog
Add to search

© The Author(s) 2020

Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons license, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons license, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons license and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.

PMC Copyright notice

Scanning electron microscopy and ToF-SIMS molecular 3D imaging of condition (A) in schematic Fig. 1. Scanning electron microscopy (A,B) and X-ray spectroscopic (C,D) analysis of A549 cells treated with 0.5 mM HAuCl₄ confirms NP formation (scale bar 5 µm in A,C and 200 nm in B). The ion signals from Au⁺ (E, untreated A549 cells; G, ionic gold) and threonine-O-3-phosphate aureate (F, untreated A549 cells; H, A549 cells treated with low dose of ionic gold). (I,J) Topography of extracellular spherical Au nanostructures on top of A549 cells (square ROI 130 µ × 130 µ in I and 80 µ × 80 µ in J). (K) Reconstructed 3D depth profile of mineralized Au structures in A549 cell cultures. The Au⁺ signal (red, translucent) indicates the spherical Au-NP, whilst the signal for threonine-O-3-phosphate aureate is shown in green. (L) Enlarged view from (K, arrow) showing the combined distribution of threonine-O-3-phosphate (green) and Au-NPs signals (orange) with occasional overlap (ring).