Fig. 5: Damage is visibly larger in mineralized versus demineralized bones exposed to identical radiation. | Nature Communications

Fig. 5: Damage is visibly larger in mineralized versus demineralized bones exposed to identical radiation.

From: Primary radiation damage in bone evolves via collagen destruction by photoelectrons and secondary emission self-absorption

Fig. 5

a Backscatter imaging scanning electron microscopy (SEM-BEI) images of irradiated sample with mineral show bright damage imprints. Damage imprints in demineralized samples appear dark in SEM-BEI images and are smaller in demineralized samples compared to mineralized ones (n = 2 for mineralized bone and n = 3 for demineralized bone). b Second harmonic generation (SHG) images of samples shown in (a) demonstrate how irradiated bone containing mineral reveals black spots indicative of damage. Damage imprints (black) in demineralized bone appear smaller compared to mineralized bone samples. The scale bar is 100 μm. XRF sum spectra of the native and demineralized samples are shown in Supplementary Figure 6, identifying abundant calcium (Ca) in the former and no Ca signal in the latter. Strontium (Sr) is a natural substitute to Ca and is also removed upon demineralization.

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