Drug targeting and metabolic investigations of cryoprepared tumor cells with analytical electron energy loss spectroscopy

Analytical electron microscopy is an ideal tool for holistic data acquisition on biological systems. The use of analytical electron microscopy for both, the investigation of micropharma-cokinetic problems and metabolic studies, is becoming more and more important. Depending on the mode of investigation, it is possible to localize drugs and xenobiotics precisely in situ under optical control or to quantify their uptake and distribution in the corresponding target cells without disintegrating the cell or tissue material. In this paper, we present instructive examples for the application of analytical electron energy loss spectroscopy in transmission electron microscopy in order to investigate the cellular uptake and distribution of cisplatin and cyclophosphamide and the metabolic changes induced by an alteration in the extracellular calcium concentration in a holistic manner.