Three-Dimensional Correlative Imaging of a Malaria-Infected Cell with a Hard X‑ray Nanoprobe

Benefiting from the recent advances of synchrotron X-ray nanoprobes, we demonstrate three-dimensional (3D) correlative nanoimaging on malaria-infected human red blood cells. By combining X-ray fluorescence tomography and phase contrast nanotomography on the same cell with sub-100 nm pixel size, we establish a routine workflow from the data acquisition, data processing, to tomographic reconstruction. We quantitatively compare the elemental volumes obtained with different reconstruction methods, with the total variation minimization giving the most satisfactory results. We reveal elemental correlations in different cell compartments more reliably on reconstructions as opposed to 2D projections. Finally, we determine for the first time the 3D mass fraction maps of multiple elements at the subcellular level. The estimated total number of Fe atoms and the total mass of red blood cells show very good agreement with previously reported values.