Jeol USA has announced that Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, US, has selected two Jeol transmission electron microscopes (TEM) for use in life sciences and soft materials science research.
The TEMs will be used by staff at the Robert P Apkarian Integrated Electron Microscopy Core (RPAIEMC).
One will operate at 120kV and the other at 200kV.
The instruments are equipped for imaging conventionally obtained stained samples or sections, as well as frozen hydrated specimens.
Software will allow for high throughout using techniques ranging from tomography to single particle imaging.
RPAIEMC staff, members of the Wright lab, and users from the region will image and study a range of biological and soft materials samples such as: infectious viruses; pathogenic and non-pathogenic bacteria; mammalian tissues; self-assembled peptide matrices; and nanoprobes.
The Jeol model JEM-2200FS TEM with in-column energy filter and thin-film/electro-static phase plate technology will be the showpiece of the expanded EM laboratory.
'Phase plate technology increases biological specimen imaging contrast by a factor of 3-5, which is going to be of tremendous benefit for imaging a range of cryo-specimens from single particles all the way to sectioned materials,' said Dr Jaap Brink, TEM product manager at Jeol.
The 2200FS will be dedicated to cryo-imaging of biological and soft materials specimens.
As part of the evaluation process, Dr Elizabeth R Wright, director of the RPAIEMC and assistant professor in the Department of Pediatrics, Emory University School of Medicine, and Georgia Research Alliance Distinguished Investigator, collected data on bacterial samples using phase plates specifically designed for the Jeol TEM by Prof Kuniaki Nagayama's lab at the Okazaki Institute for Integrative Bioscience in Japan - the lab that developed the technology.
She also collected data in the lab of Dr Wah Chiu at the National Center for Macromolecular Imaging at Baylor College of Medicine in Texas, a centre for excellence in cryo-electron microscopy.
The practical use of phase plate technology provides a marked increase in specimen contrast not typically seen in biological samples imaged under cryo-conditions.
Wright said: 'My lab specialises in cryo-EM and cryo-electron tomography (cryo-ET) of bacteria and viruses.
'We do not alter the structure of the sample through the addition of contrast enhancing stains.
'Therefore, the primary way we obtain greater contrast is to apply a defocus to the image.
'However, this is at the expense of resolution.
'The use of a phase plate, both the Zernike type and the electro-static type, will allow us to maximise the contrast of unstained samples without the use of a defocus and thus retain the resolution.
'It is an amazing benefit to have this technology to apply to structural studies of pathogens,' Wright added.
Wright studies the basic structure of several pathogenic viruses and bacteria in order to develop novel vaccines and therapeutics.
Her research involves examining viruses, such as HIV-1, measles, and respiratory syncytial virus (RSV), which are generally100-300nm in size.
Specific targets include the examination of viral assembly and maturation, as well as the viral glycoproteins that attach to and fuse viruses to the target cell.
