Tell me, where is the boron, where should I look for it?

Similar to neutron capture therapy (NBCT), the possibility of proton boron fusion therapy (PBFT) is being investigated. In PBFT, the effect of the proton beam is increased by the reaction of protons with boron to produce three alpha particles, characterized by high biological efficiency. In this work, the authors focused on detecting the presence of boron using ICP-OES and EELS in cells of the glioblastoma line U251. The compound sodium mercaptodecaborate (BSH) was used as a boron carrier. Lysates were prepared from a series of cells incubated with different concentrations of boron and subsequently rinsed with varying intensity in a phosphate buffered saline (PBS) solution using nitric acid, in which boron was detected by the ICP-OES method. In the case of EELS, the tumor cells with the added boron compound were treated with an ultrafast freezing method, which preserves the molecules in the cell in their original positions. Subsequently, these are embedded in resin and cut into ultrathin (on the order of nm) sections, which are scanned with a transmission electron microscope. In the paper, the authors will present the results of both methods. (authors)