Nuclear incorporation of iron during the eukaryotic cell cycle

Scanning X-ray fluorescence microscopy has been used to probe the distribution of S, P and Fe within cell nuclei. Nuclei, which may have originated at different phases of the cell cycle, are found to show very different levels of Fe present with a strongly inhomogeneous distribution. P and S signals, presumably from DNA and associated nucleosomes, are high and relatively uniform across all the nuclei; these agree with X-ray phase contrast projection microscopy images of the same samples. Possible reasons for the Fe incorporation are discussed.