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Unit 10
Biology
1. Read
, translate and give the summary of the text ―Advantages of
Ultrarapid and High-P
ressure Freezing Methods‖.
Advantages of Ultrarapid and High-Pressure Freezing Methods
Ultrarapid and high-pressure freezing methods offer a multitude of
advantages as preparation methods in cell biology. By avoiding the need
for chemical fixation, these cryofixation techniques potentially permit the
study of cell structure in a condition close to that existing in life. Because
one particular instant in a biological process can be captured, the
accumulation of intermediate stages, which may occur during slow death
in aldehyde fixatives, is avoided. Living specimens can thus be frozen for
ultrastructural examination at known intervals after application of a
biological stimulus. This has made it possible to use the electron
microscope for studies of transient biological events that are completed
within a few seconds or even, in favorable instances, within a few
milliseconds. The ability to undertake such direct kinetic studies was a
significant breakthrough in cell biology, as previously, sequences of such
rapid events could only be guessed at indirectly from images of
chemically fixed specimens. Metal block impact freezing, spray freezing,
plunge freezing, and jet freezing methods have all been adopted to
permit time-resolved analysis of rapid events (for review, see Knoll,
1995).
Another important advantage is that ultrarapid-frozen specimens can
be subjected to
deep etching
or freeze drying, a technique in which water
molecules are allowed to sublime from the frozen surface of a fractured
(or, in some cases, unfractured) specimen before replication (see article
by Shotton). Glycerol cannot be sublimed, but by directly freezing
specimens in dilute aqueous solutions, the outer surfaces of membranes,
extracellular matrix components, and intracellular cytoskeletal elements
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can be exposed by deep etching or freeze drying. For deep-etch
observations of the cytoskeleton and internal membrane surfaces of
cells, a compromise has to be made in order to obtain clean views
unobscured by cytoplasmic components. Typical procedures for cultured
cells attached to a substrate involve lysing them with Triton X-100 or
physically tearing them open by peeling off a strip of nitrocellulose
membrane that has been allowed to adhere to their dorsal surfaces. This
is followed by rinsing in dilute buffer to remove cytoplasmic components,
light fixation with aldehydes, and then immersion in 10
–15% methanol
immediately prior to freezing. The methanol acts as a cryoprotectant,
increasing the depth of adequate freezing, and also has the advantage of
being volatile under vacuum at
–100°C, thus facilitating the etching
process. This application is thus quite distinct from studies aiming to
preserve structure in the native state, but it is a fundamentally important
one, as it provides access to structural information that cannot be
obtained by other electron microscopical methods (Heuser, 1981). Deep
etching has also been adopted to study macromolecules absorbed to
microscopic mica flakes and other substances (Heuser, 1989).
In addition to freeze fracture, deep etching, and cryoelectron
microscopy, other key routes to the examination of ultrarapid-frozen
specimens are freeze substitution and cryoultramicrotomy. Here the
ability
to
preserve
epitopes
is
of
prime
importance
for
immunocytochemical studies (see article by Roos
et al.
). The
complementary application of these approaches, together with freeze-
fracture cytochemistry (Severs, 1995; Fujimoto, 1997), has wide
application in cell biology today.
From ―Cell Biology‖ (2006),
by Nickolas J.Severs and David M.Shotten,
Nicholas J. Severs and David M.
edited by Julio E. Celis.