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Seeing the Forest for the Trees: Selective Staining and Contrast Enhancement Methods for Biological Electron Microscopy

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  02 July 2020

M. H. Ellisman*
Affiliation:
National Center for Microscopy and Imaging Research, UCSD, La Jolla, CA, 92093
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Abstract

Electron tomography has proven to be an invaluable tool for studying the 3-dimensional organization of a wide range of structures, from large cellular processes down to individual macromolecular complexes. An important requirement for electron tomography of thick specimens is the need for selective staining to delineate the structure of interest from other cellular constituents. of particular usefulness in this regard is the method of fluorescence photooxidation, whereby the reactive oxygen generated by a fluorescent compound is used to oxidize diaminobenzidine into a reaction product that can then be visualized with the electron microscope. The main advantages of this method are that not only does it allow for excellent correlated light and electron microscopy, but also the relatively small size of the oxidizing agent used allows for excellent 3-D labeling with high resolution.

This method has proven to be a particularly versatile technique.

Type
Tutorials (Biological Sciences Tutorials Organized by G. Sosinsky) (Physical Sciences Tutorials Organized by I. Anderson)
Copyright
Copyright © Microscopy Society of America 2001

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References

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