# Presentation: 087994

## Research Collaborations Using X-ray Fluorescence Microscopy to Study Heavy Metals and Nanocomposites in Whole Animal Tissues

- 	**Barbara A. Wilson, Ph.D. **
**	****Associate Professor of Biology/Genetics Department of Biology,  College of Science, Engineering and Technology Jackson State University **
**Jackson, Mississippi 39217**

## COLLABORATIVE PROGRAMS(CONSORTIA, ALLIANCES, PARTNERSHIPS)

**U.S. Environmental Protection Agency and Jackson State University Environmental Science Partnership**
**Science and Engineering Alliance**
**Mississippi Research Consortium**
**Louis Stokes Alliance for Minority Participation**
**HBCU/MI Environmental Tech Consortium**
**Army High Performance Computing Program**
**The Trent Lott Geospatial and Visualization Research Center**

**JSU-CEWES Partnership**
**Cooperative Programs of Marine Education with National Marine Fisheries**
**Bioremediation Education, Science and Technology Partnership**
**Cooperative Programs with various NASA Centers**
**Research and Education Partnership Agreement with Office of Naval Research**
**Oak Ridge National Laboratory/Oak Ridge Associated Universities HBCUs/MIs Faculty Summer Research Program**

## The Mississippi University Research Consortium for the Utilization of Biomass 

**In 2000, the US Department of Energy approved funding under the EPSCoR Program for organizing The Mississippi University Research Consortium for the Utilization of Biomass.**

## The DOE EPSCoR Mississippi University Research Consortium

**	****Participating member institutions within the State of Mississippi include:**
**Jackson State University**
**Mississippi State University**
**University of Mississippi, and**
**University of Southern Mississippi**

## DOE EPSCoR Program in Mississippi

**Consistent with the DOE EPSCoR Program, this Consortium focuses on developing and increasing the technical capabilities and resources within Mississippi for addressing DOE mission areas, while improving the human resources within the state for supporting energy-related initiatives within Mississippi. **

## NSF Funded Programs at Jackson State University (JSU)

**Centers for Learning and Teaching (CLT)**
**Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST)**
**Historically Black Colleges and Universities Undergraduate Program (HBCU-UP)**
**Louis Stokes Alliances for Minority Participation (LSAMP)**
**NSF - Faculty and Student Teams (FaST) Program**

## NSF Participating Programs at JSU

**National Science Foundation (NSF)-Centers of Research Excellence in Science and Technology (CREST): ****Computational Center for Molecular Structure and Interaction **
**NSF-DOE Interagency Cooperative Agreement - ****	****Faculty and Student Team (FaST) Program**

## NSF-FaST Program

**The NSF-Faculty and Student Teams (FaST) Program is a cooperative effort between the DOE Office of Science and NSF.**
**Purpose: To provide hands-on research and educational opportunities for faculty-student teams in DOE national laboratories in close collaboration with DOE research scientists.**
**The objective of the APS general user program (previously known as the independent investigator program) is to provide maximum opportunities for productive use of the APS by qualified researchers through a central APS process for proposal submission, peer review, and beam time allocation.**

## Laboratory Partnerships 

***Existing Established Research Collaborations:***
**Drs. Jörg Maser and Stefan Vogt (Advanced Photon Source, Argonne National Laboratory)**
**Drs. Gayle Woloschak and Tatjana Paunesku (Dept. of Radiology, Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University)**
**Dr. Jerzy Leszczynski (Dept. of Chemistry, Director of the Computational Center for Molecular Structure and Interaction NSF-CREST Program at Jackson State University)**

## NSF-FaST Team Project (Summer 2004)

***Undergraduate Participants***
**Seymoné Powell (Alcorn State University, Department of Biology)**
**Shí Nitta Woulard (Jackson State University, Department of Chemistry) **
***Student ‘s Project***
**	****Use of the Advance Photon Source (APS) to study the distribution of introduced titanium nanocomposites in mammalian cells.  **

## NSF-FaST Team Project

**	****This component of the joint project will primarily be directed toward metal detection and visualization in whole tissues using the APS 2ID-E x-ray fluorescence microprobe.**

## Beamline layout

- 2-ID-E

- 2-ID-D

- storage ring & undulator

- first mirror

- ‘white’
-  SR beam

- ‘pink’ beam

- beamsplitting crystal

- double crystal monochromator

- monochr.
- beam

- slits

- OSA

- sample chamber

- zone plate

- energy dispersive detector

- slits

- OSA

- sample chamber

- zone plate

- energy dispersive detector

- Insertion Device Beamline setup shown

## Collaborations With Northwestern University, Feinberg School of Medicine Radiology Department

**	****In collaboration with Dr. Woloschak, work on this project will involve:**
** ****Designing and synthesizing TiO****2****-DNA ****	****nanoparticles,**
** ****Testing them *****in vitro***** for their ability to turn off ****	****proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) ****	****expression, and **
** ****Using these nanoparticles to turn off expression ****	****of PCNA in whole mice thymus gland.**

## Proliferating Cell Nuclear Antigen (PCNA)

- PCNA, or cyclin, is a non-histone acidic nuclear protein that plays a key role in the control of eukaryotic DNA replication.  It acts as a co-factor for DNA polymerase delta, which is responsible for leading strand DNA replication.
- The sequence of PCNA is well conserved between plants and animals, indicating strong selective pressure for structure conservation, and suggesting that this type of DNA replication mechanism is conserved throughout eukayotes.

## Collaborations With the Advanced Photon Source at Argonne National Laboratory

**We will use x-ray fluorescence microscopy to monitor the localization and accumulation of metals in tissues.**
**Drs. Jörg Maser and Stefan Vogt  will collaborate with us towards our efforts on this project at  the APS.****  **

## Fig. 1. Image of a PC12 (rat pheochromocytoma) cell transfected by TiO2-DNA nanocomposites specific for mitochondrial genomic DNA—elemental maps from P to Zn detected by x-ray fluorescence microprobe at 2ID-E.

## Collaborations Within Jackson State University’s College of Science, Engineering & Technology

**Dr. Leszczynski’s group at Jackson State University will carry out the calculations for computational modeling of nanocomposite interactions in tissues.**
** ****Molecular modeling has become an inseparable part of the research activities devoted toward achieving an understanding of the molecular bases of environmental, biochemical, and biological processes.  Such techniques could also be used as tools to direct experimental work.**

## APS at ANL

**It is anticipated that this initiative will lead to long term collaboration and user agreement with the APS facility.**
**Additionally, the use of the APS, which could be recurrent even after completion of the ten-week NSF-FaST Faculty Student Team program, will provide our laboratory with new expertise that could be long-lasting from a collaborative perspective.**

## New Partnerships between Jackson State University, Argonne National Laboratory and Northwestern University

**Overall, these collaborations should strengthen the NSF-DOE Faculty Student team project by providing hands on experience with nanotechnology.**
**Further, it is anticipated that this approach will provide new methods for studying the cellular distribution and affects of heavy metals in mammalian tissues.**

## Acknowledgements

***Funding provided by***
**NSF-DOE Interagency Cooperative Agreement - Faculty and Student Team (FaST) Program**
**NIH/NCI Minority Supplemental Award Grant #1 RO1 CA107467-01 (M.I.- Barbara A. Wilson, Ph.D.), and Gayle Woloschak, Ph.D. (P.I.), ****Dept. of Radiology, Feinberg School of Medicine at Northwestern University**
**NSF-CREST Administrative Supplemental Award Grant #HRD-0318519 (P.I. – Barbara A. Wilson, Ph.D.) and Jerzy ****Leszczynski, Ph.D. (P.I.), ****Dept. of Chemistry, Director of the Computational Center for Molecular Structure and Interaction NSF-CREST Program at Jackson State University**
**Use of the Advanced Photon Source is supported by the U.S. Department of Energy, Basic Energy Sciences, Office of Energy Research, under Contract No. W-31-109-Eng-38**

## First International Symposium on Recent Advances in Environmental Health Research

- Upcoming Conference:
- September 19-22, 2004
- Jackson, Mississippi
- www.jsums.edu/cset