Figure 3

A-H. ATCA are taken up by foam cells. Foam cells were incubated with ATCA (10 μg/ml; A-F) or non-targeted control (G,H) for 16 (A,B), 48 (C,D) or 72 (E,F) hrs, washed, fixed, and subjected to FIB-SEM. Left columns (A,C,E,G) shows the morphology images taken by secondary electron detector after focused ion beam cut and the right column (B,D,F,H) shows the corresponding material contrast images taken by energy and angle selective backscattered electron (EsB) detector for the same region. The foam cell-targeted ATCA are clearly revealed inside the cells but not in the non-targeted controls. In parallel, an aliquot of cells were used to measure cell viability by trypan blue exclusion and revealed no cell death induced by ATCA addition compared to non-treated controls (not shown).