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Journal of Electron Microscopy Advance Access originally published online on March 30, 2009
Journal of Electron Microscopy 2009 58(4):267-279; doi:10.1093/jmicro/dfp017
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© The Author 2009. Published by Oxford University Press on behalf of Japanese Society of Microscopy. All rights reserved. For permissions, please e-mail: journals.permissions@oxfordjournals.org

Establishment of a standardized post-embedding method for immunoelectron microscopy by applying heat-induced antigen retrieval

Shuji Yamashita1,*, Osamu Katsumata3 and Yasunori Okada2

1 Electron Microscope Laboratory
2 Department of Pathology, School of Medicine, Keio University, 35-Shinanomachi, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo 160-8582
3 Department of Anatomy, Kitasato University School of Medicine, 1-15-1 Kitasato, Sagamihara, Kanagawa 228-8555, Japan

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: shuji{at}sc.itc.keio.ac.jp

We have developed a new standardized method for the post-embedding immunoelectron microscopy using the same fixation, antigen retrieval and image contrasting procedures. Tissues were fixed with 4% formaldehyde containing 2.5 mM CaCl2, 1.25 mM MgCl2 in a 0.1 M 4-(2-hydroxyethyl)-piperazineethanesulfonic acid (HEPES) buffer (pH 7.4) for 2 h and then with the same fixative composition in 0.1 M HEPES buffer (pH 8.5) overnight at room temperature. Vehicle osmolarity of fixatives was adjusted to 300–330 mOsm by adding glucose. The specimens were dehydrated with dimethylformamide on ice and embedded in LR-White resin. Ultrathin sections were heated in a 20 mM Tris–HCl buffer (pH 9.0) for 1–2 h at 95°C. After immuno-gold labeling, the sections were treated with 2% glutaraldehyde containing 0.05% tannic acid in a 0.1 M phosphate buffer (pH 5.5) for 5 min and with a 1% OsO4/0.1 M phosphate buffer (pH 7.4) for 5 min, and then they were double stained with uranyl acetate and lead citrate. The standardized method yielded strong and reproducible immunoreactions for soluble, membrane-bound and filamentous proteins showing an excellent image contrast without destruction of the fine structures.

Keywords     immunoelectron microscopy, post-embedding method, heat-induced antigen retrieval, tannic acid, electron staining

Received     10 December 2008, accepted 9 March 2009


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