Chemical Imaging Analysis of the Micropatterns of Proteins and Cells Using Cluster Ion Beam-based Time-of-Flight Secondary Ion Mass Spectrometry and Principal Component Analysis

Micropatterns of streptavidin and human epidermal carcinoma A431 cells were successfully imaged, as received and without any labeling, using cluster $Au_3{^+}$ ion beam-based time-of-flight secondary ion mass spectrometry (TOF-SIMS) together with a principal component analysis (PCA). Three different analysis ion beams ($Ga^+$, $Au^+$ and $Au_3{^+}$) were compared to obtain label-free TOF-SIMS chemical images of micropatterns of streptavidin, which were subsequently used for generating cell patterns. The image of the total positive ions obtained by the $Au_3{^+}$ primary ion beam corresponded to the actual image of micropatterns of streptavidin, whereas the total positive-ion images by $Ga^+$ or $Au^+$ primary ion beams did not. A PCA of the TOF-SIMS spectra was initially performed to identify characteristic secondary ions of streptavidin. Chemical images of each characteristic ion were reconstructed from the raw data and used in the second PCA run, which resulted in a contrasted - and corrected - image of the micropatterns of streptavidin by the $Ga^+$ and $Au^+$ ion beams. The findings herein suggest that using cluster-ion analysis beams and multivariate data analysis for TOF-SIMS chemical imaging would be an effectual method for producing label-free chemical images of micropatterns of biomolecules, including proteins and cells.