Exploring Cell Biodiversity

Brain tissue is a really complex system composed of different cell types that change in shape and size. A single neuron itself has a cell body, dendrites and an axon. About 80% of cerebral tissue consists of water molecules that are confined (intra and extra cellular) in its disordered biologic networks. Using neutron scattering on IN13 we are able to explore hydrogens (H) dynamics in time scale at about 40 ps and in size scale at about 1 Å. Such characteristic make it suitable to investigate brain tissue heterogeneity exploiting hydrogens as a probe since major constituent of macromolecules and water. Elastic neutron scattering (ENS) gives information about means square displacement (MSDs) and flexibility (inversely proportional to k force constant) associable at complex and disordered system as cellular tissue. Cell paste with water extra cellular removed of E. coli bacteria, yeast (fungus), glioma 9L and PC12 cancer cell from rat was investigated by ENS. Preliminary results show that MSDs increase as a function of temperature and that k force constant value is strongly dependent on cellular biodiversity. The smaller is the k force constant the bigger are the flexibility associated to the system, consequently increasing the dynamic.