Improving adhesion and targeting of adherent areas for high-throughput cryo electron tomography of vitreous sections
Abstract
Cellular cryo electron tomography explores tissue and cells in their unstained flash-frozen native state, revealing in situ the structure of macromolecules together with their local environment and interactions with partners, also known as molecular sociology. To obtain thin samples, cryo-FIB milling is nowadays the most popular method, with impressive successes. The alternative, cryo-ultramicrotomy, is often overlooked on account of poorly reproducible attachment of cryo-sections to their support, resulting in extremely low throughput. We optimized the workflow, focusing on section adhesion and their support grids. We thus increased vitreous sections’ cryo electron tomography throughput to equal that of thin film, with typically several tens to hundreds of cryo-tomograms per sample. This open the way to new advances in cellular cryo electron tomography, as the method is devoid of beam damage, can provide large surfaces and serial sections of any type of sample from cells to tissues. In addition, section thickness can be tuned down to 30-50 nm, which may be an advantage for imaging small molecular complexes, such as DNA and nucleosomes.
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BibTeX
@article{taiki2026improving,
title = {{Improving adhesion and targeting of adherent areas for high-throughput cryo electron tomography of vitreous sections}},
author = {Fatima Taiki and Helmut Gnaegi and Diana Grewe and Nils Marechal and Mikhail Eltsov and Amélie Leforestier},
journal = {Journal of Structural Biology: X},
year = {2026},
month = nov,
doi = {10.1016/j.yjsbx.2026.100167},
url = {https://hal.science/hal-05853631v1},
note = {CC BY},
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
TI - Improving adhesion and targeting of adherent areas for high-throughput cryo electron tomography of vitreous sections
AU - Fatima Taiki
AU - Helmut Gnaegi
AU - Diana Grewe
AU - Nils Marechal
AU - Mikhail Eltsov
AU - Amélie Leforestier
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/11/05
JO - Journal of Structural Biology: X
DO - 10.1016/j.yjsbx.2026.100167
UR - https://hal.science/hal-05853631v1
AB - Cellular cryo electron tomography explores tissue and cells in their unstained flash-frozen native state, revealing in situ the structure of macromolecules together with their local environment and interactions with partners, also known as molecular sociology. To obtain thin samples, cryo-FIB milling is nowadays the most popular method, with impressive successes. The alternative, cryo-ultramicrotomy, is often overlooked on account of poorly reproducible attachment of cryo-sections to their support, resulting in extremely low throughput. We optimized the workflow, focusing on section adhesion and their support grids. We thus increased vitreous sections’ cryo electron tomography throughput to equal that of thin film, with typically several tens to hundreds of cryo-tomograms per sample. This open the way to new advances in cellular cryo electron tomography, as the method is devoid of beam damage, can provide large surfaces and serial sections of any type of sample from cells to tissues. In addition, section thickness can be tuned down to 30-50 nm, which may be an advantage for imaging small molecular complexes, such as DNA and nucleosomes.
SN - 2590-1524
ER -