Abstract
This chapter describes methods to enhanced contrast of plant material processed by high-pressure freezing and freeze substitution for improved visualization by serial block-face scanning electron microscopy (SBEM). The contrast enhancing steps are based on a protocol involving the sequential incubation of samples in heavy metals and sodium thiocarbohydrazide (OTO staining). We also describe the pipeline for imaging plant tissues in a commercial SBEM system (Gatan 3View®) and routines for the image analysis and three-dimensional reconstructions using open-source and commercial software packages.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Rieder CL (1981) Thick and thin serial sectioning for the three-dimensional reconstruction of biological ultrastructure. In: Turner JN (ed) Methods in cell biology. Academic Press, New York, pp 215–249
Zheng HQ, Staehelin LA (2001) Nodal endoplasmic reticulum, a specialized form of endoplasmic reticulum found in gravity-sensing root tip columella cells. Plant Physiol 125:252–265
McEwen BF, Marko M (2001) The emergence of electron tomography as an important tool for investigating cellular ultrastructure. J Histochem Cytochem 49:553–564
Leighton SB (1981) SEM images of block faces, cut by a miniature microtome within the SEM - a technical note. Scan Electron Microsc 73–76.
Denk W, Horstmann H (2004) Serial block-face scanning electron microscopy to reconstruct three-dimensional tissue nanostructure. PLOS Biol 2:e329
Deerinck TJ et al (2018) High-performance serial block-face SEM of nonconductive biological samples enabled by focal gas injection-based charge compensation. J Microsc 270:142–149
Peddie CJ, Collinson LM (2014) Exploring the third dimension: volume electron microscopy comes of age. Micron 61:9–19
Wei D et al (2012) High-resolution three-dimensional reconstruction of a whole yeast cell using focused-ion beam scanning electron microscopy. BioTechniques 53:41–48
Smith D, Starborg T (2019) Serial block face scanning electron microscopy in cell biology: applications and technology. Tissue Cell 57:111–122
Seligman AM, Wasserkrug HL, Hanker JS (1966) A new staining method (OTO) for enhancing contrast of lipid—containing membranes and droplets in osmium tetroxide—fixed tissue with osmiophilic thiocarbohydrazide (TCH). J Cell Biol 30:424–432
Deerinck TJ et al (2010) Enhancing serial block-face scanning electron microscopy to enable high resolution 3-D nanohistology of cells and tissues. Microsc Microanal 16:1138–1139
Kittelmann M, Hawes C, Hughes L (2016) Serial block face scanning electron microscopy and the reconstruction of plant cell membrane systems. J Microsc 263:200–211
Otegui MS, Pennington JG (2019) Electron tomography in plant cell biology. Microscopy (Oxf) 68:69–79
Bourett TM, Czymmek KJ, Howard RJ (1999) Ultrastructure of chloroplast protuberances in rice leaves preserved by high-pressure freezing. Planta 208:472–479
Kiss JZ et al (1990) Comparison of the ultrastructure of conventionally fixed and high pressure frozen/freeze substituted root tips of Nicotiana and Arabidopsis. Protoplasma 157:64–74
Willingham MC, Rutherford AV (1984) The use of osmium-thiocarbohydrazide-osmium (OTO) and ferrocyanide-reduced osmium methods to enhance membrane contrast and preservation in cultured cells. J Histochem Cytochem 32:455–460
Hall DH, Hartweig E, Nguyen KCQ. OTO fixation for SEM and blockface imaging. Wormatlas - anatomical methods. https://www.wormatlas.org/EMmethods/OTOFix.htm
Acknowledgments
This work was partially funded by NSF grant MCB1614965 to MSO and UW2020 WARF Discovery award to M.H.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2020 Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Czymmek, K. et al. (2020). Imaging Plant Cells by High-Pressure Freezing and Serial block-face scanning electron microscopy. In: Otegui, M. (eds) Plant Endosomes. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2177. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0767-1_7
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-0767-1_7
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-0766-4
Online ISBN: 978-1-0716-0767-1
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols