Our group has reported the imprint formation of biological material on polycarbonate nuclear track detectors by UV-C exposure, which is used as an approach to simultaneously visualize cell imprints and nuclear tracks coming from the boron neutron capture reaction. Considering that the cell nucleus has a higher UV-C absorption than the cytoplasm and that hematoxylin preferentially stains the nucleus, we proposed to enhance the contrast between these two main cell structures by hematoxylin staining before UV-C sensitization. In this study, several experiments were performed in order to optimize UV-C exposure parameters and chemical etching conditions for cell imprint formation using the SK-BR-3 breast cancer cell line. The proposed method improves significantly the resolution of the cell imprints. It allows clear differentiation of the nucleus from the rest of the cell, together with nuclear tracks pits. Moreover, it reduces considerably the UV-C exposure time, an important experimental issue. The proposed methodology can be applied to study the boron distribution independently from the chosen cell line and/or boron compounds.

The distribution of boron in tissue samples coming from boron neutron capture therapy protocols can be determined through the analysis of its autoradiography image on a nuclear track detector. A more precise knowledge of boron atom location on the microscopic scale can be attained by the observation of nuclear tracks superimposed on the sample image on the detector. A method to produce an “imprint” of cells cultivated on a polycarbonate detector was developed, based on the photodegradation properties of UV-C radiation on this material. Optimal conditions to generate an appropriate monolayer of Mel-J cells incubated with boronophenylalanine were found. The best images of both cells and nuclear tracks were obtained for a neutron fluence of 1013 cm−2, 6 h UV-C (254 nm) exposure, and 4 min etching time with a KOH solution. The imprint morphology was analyzed by both light and scanning electron microscopy. Similar samples, exposed to UV-A (360 nm) revealed no cellular imprinting. Etch pits were present only inside the cell imprints, indicating a preferential boron uptake (about threefold the incubation concentration). Comparative studies of boron absorption in different cell lines and in vitro evaluation of the effect of diverse boron compounds are feasible with this methodology.