Abstract
The freeze-fracture technique splits the frozen lipid bilayer membrane into two halves and immobilizes membrane proteins and lipids by the vacuum evaporation of platinum and carbon. After a treatment by SDS to remove extramembrane materials, the specimen is subjected to immunogold labeling, which gives information on the two-dimensional distribution of membrane molecules and their relationship to various differentiated structures. In combination with rapid freezing, the freeze-fracture technique has an advantage over other methods using conventional chemical fixation because the distribution of lipids as well as proteins can be observed at the mesoscale in a wide area of the membrane.
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Fujita, A., Fujimoto, T. (2010). High-Resolution Molecular Localization by Freeze-Fracture Replica Labeling. In: Schwartzbach, S., Osafune, T. (eds) Immunoelectron Microscopy. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 657. Humana Press, Totowa, NJ. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60761-783-9_16
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-60761-783-9_16
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