FIB-SEM tomography datasets of entire single-cell human monocyte derived macrophages

FIB-SEM tomography was used to determine the absolute number of internalized gold nanoparticles in GM-CSF and M-CSF human monocyte-derived macrophages at the single-cell level. All experiments were performed using a Thermo Scientific Scios 2 Dual Beam microscope (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA). A selected cell was protected with a platinum (Pt) layer of 1 µm thickness (30 kV and current of 1 nA). Then, a trench of 5 µm in depth was milled on the front face and each side of the cell of interest using the ion beam at 7 nA current. Finally, the front face of the volume of interest was polished with an ion beam current of 1 nA until the beginning of the cell was visible to optimize the focus and contrast. FIB-SEM tomography of the whole cell was performed using the FEI Slice and View software (Thermo Fisher Scientific, Waltham, MA, USA, version 4.1). The electron beam acceleration voltage was set to 5 kV, the current to 0.4 nA, the resolution to 1536 × 1024 pixels, and the dwell time to 30 µs. Images were acquired in immersion mode with the backscattered electron detector, yielding clear signals from AuNPs due to the detector's sensitivity to backscattered electrons, which correlates with the atomic number of Au (Z = 79). The ion beam operating with a current of 1 nA current at 30 kV was used to slice through the cell of interest at an interval of 18 nm and a depth of 5 µm. The datasets available on the repository have been aligned and cropped.