The usefulness of glutaraldehyde‐carbohydrazide copolymerization in biological specimen stabilization for scanning electron microscopy

Abstract

Biological specimens can be prepared for scanning electron microscopy by means of copolymerizing the fixing agent glutaraldehyde with carbohydrazide prior to air drying. Such preparations are more stable in the electron microscope, show less internal cellular disruption and retain more of their native elemental composition than specimens prepared by means of dehydration and critical-point drying. Specimens observed in the scanning electron microscope can often be recovered for thin sectioning with no additional embedment, and can then be observed by means of transmission electron microscopy. The preparation (termed GACH) can be performed in almost any laboratory with no specialized equipment and, for the most part, may be carried out at room temperature. The technique appears to provide the promise of further research applications in scanning electron microscopy which may employ conjugated procedures of immunocytochemistry and cathodoluminescence as well as X-ray microanalysis in limited situations.

A new rapid method of air‐drying for scanning electron microscopy using tetramethylsilane

“…The standard techniques to avoid this are critical pointdrying (CPD) and freeze-drying (FD) (Anderson, 1951;Boyde & Wood, 1969;Echlin & Moreton, 1973). However, CPD causes thermal and pressure stresses in the tissue, takes a long time and may extract cellular components in the transitional fluid (Gunning & Crang, 1984). Freeze-drying may cause surface damage due to ice-crystal formation and is also lengthy (Boyde, 1978).…”

Processing Techniques for Scanning Electron Microscopy Imaging of Giant Cells from Giant Cell Tumors of Bone

“…These cells also showed rigidity, and breakage that was probably due to fast-drying by TMS of nonpliable GCs. The standard techniques to avoid these adverse effects are CPD and FD (Anderson, 1951; Boyde & Wood, 1969; Gunning & Crang, 1984). CPD, however, has been associated with thermal and pressure stresses in the tissue (Gunning & Crang, 1984) and FD takes a long time and may cause cell membrane damage due to the ice-crystal formation (Frederik & Busing, 1981; Terracio & Schwabe, 1981; Bearer & Orci, 1986).…”

Replacing critical point drying with a low-cost chemical drying provides comparable surface image quality of glandular trichomes from leaves of Millingtonia hortensis L. f. in scanning electron micrograph

“…A decrease in the quality of pollen grains during sample preparation using CPD was also described in an earlier study (Adams and Morton 1972 ). Further, it was also reported that CPD can cause thermal and pressure stresses in tissues for an extended period and may extract cellular components from the transitional fluid (Gunning and Crang 1984 ).…”