Visualization of cellular components in a Mammalian cell with liquid-cell transmission electron microscopy

Journal
Microscopy and microanalysis  
Volume
23
Issue
1
Start Page
46
End Page
55
Citation
Microscopy and Microanalysis 1 (23): 46-55 (2017-02-01)
Publisher DOI
10.1017/S1431927616012708
Scopus ID
2-s2.0-85011305955
Publisher
Cambridge University Press
We present liquid-cell transmission electron microscopy (liquid-cell TEM) imaging of fixed and non-fixed prostate cancer cells (PC3 and LNCaP) with high resolution in a custom developed silicon nitride liquid cell. Fixed PC3 cells were imaged for 90–120 min without any discernable damage. High contrast on the cellular structures was obtained even at low electron doses (~2.5 e − /nm 2 per image). The images show distinct structures of cell compartments (nuclei and nucleoli) and cell boundaries without any further sample embedding, dehydration, or staining. Furthermore, we observed dynamics of vesicles trafficking from the cell membrane in consecutive still frames in a non-fixed cell. Our findings show that liquid-cell TEM, operated at low electron dose, is an excellent tool to investigate dynamic events in non-fixed cells with enough spatial resolution (few nm) and natural amplitude contrast to follow key intracellular processes.
Subjects
Gold nanoparticles
In situ imaging
Liquid-cell TEM
Mammalian cells
Nanofluidic cell
DDC Class
600: Technik
Funding(s)
Nanofluidikchip für in-liquid TEM  
More Funding Information
This work was funded by the Max Planck Society and supported by the excellence cluster “The Hamburg Centre for Ultrafast Imaging”.