In situ localization of antigens of Histoplasma capsulatum using colloidal gold immune electron microscopy

1988 ◽  
Vol 104 (3) ◽  
pp. 181-188 ◽  
Author(s):  
John R Graybill ◽  
Mercedes Pati�o ◽  
Joan Ahrens
Author(s):  
Gary Bassell ◽  
Robert H. Singer

We have been investigating the spatial distribution of nucleic acids intracellularly using in situ hybridization. The use of non-isotopic nucleotide analogs incorporated into the DNA probe allows the detection of the probe at its site of hybridization within the cell. This approach therefore is compatible with the high resolution available by electron microscopy. Biotinated or digoxigenated probe can be detected by antibodies conjugated to colloidal gold. Because mRNA serves as a template for the probe fragments, the colloidal gold particles are detected as arrays which allow it to be unequivocally distinguished from background.


Author(s):  
C. D. Humphrey ◽  
C.S. Goldsmith ◽  
L. Elliott ◽  
S.R. Zaki

An outbreak of unexplained acute pulmonary syndrome with high fatality was recognized in the spring of 1993 in the southwestern United States. The cause of the illness was quickly identified serologically and genetically as a hantavirus and the disease was named hantavirus pulmonary syndrome (HPS). Recently, the virus was isolated from deer mice which had been trapped near the homes of HPS patients, and cultivated in Vero E6 cells. We identified the cultivated virus by negative-stain direct and colloidal gold immune electron microscopy (EM).Virus was extracted, clarified, and concentrated from unfixed and 0.25% glutaraldehyde fixed supernatant fluids of infected Vero E6 cells by a procedure described previously. Concentrated virus suspensions tested by direct EM were applied to glow-discharge treated formvar-carbon filmed grids, blotted, and stained with 0.5% uranyl acetate (UA) or with 2% phosphotungstic acid (PTA) pH 6.5. Virus suspensions for immune colloidal gold identification were adsorbed similarly to filmed grids but incubated for 1 hr on drops of 1:50 diluted monoclonal antibody to Prospect Hill virus nucleoprotein or with 1:50 diluted sera from HPS virus infected deer mice.


Author(s):  
Gunter F. Thomas ◽  
M. David Hoggan

In 1968, Sugimura and Yanagawa described a small 25 nm virus like particle in association with the Matsuda strain of infectious canine hepatitis virus (ICHV). Domoto and Yanagawa showed that this particle was dependent on ICHV for its replication in primary dog kidney cell cultures (PDK) and was resistant to heating at 70°C for 10 min, and concluded that it was a canine adeno-associated virus (CAAV). Later studies by Onuma and Yanagawa compared CAAV with the known human serotypes (AAV 1, 2, 3) and AAV-4, known to be associated with African Green Monkeys. Using the complement fixation (CF) test, they found that CAAV was serologically related to AAV-3 and had wide distribution in the dog population of Japan.


Author(s):  
Linda M. Stannard ◽  
Margaret Lennon

Burnupena cincta and Fusus verruculatus are two whelks which inhabit the intertidal zones of the Cape Peninsula shore. Their respiratory pigments, or haemocyanins, are morphologically similar in structure (Figs. 1 and 2) and appear in the electron microscope as short cylindrical rods about 34 nm in diameter and 36 nm high. Viewed side-on the molecules show regular banding suggesting a structure composed of six equidistant rings of sub-units. Occasionally the particles have the appearance of possessing a central “belt” in the position of the 3rd and 4th rows of sub-units. End-on views of the haemocyanin molecules show a circular contour with a dense outer ring and a less dense inner ring in which 10 definite sub-units may frequently be distinguished. A number of molecules display an extra central inner component which appears either as a diffuse plug or as a discrete ring-shaped core ± 8 nm in diameter.


Author(s):  
Joseph E. Mazurkiewicz

Immunocytochemistry is a powerful investigative approach in which one of the most exacting examples of specificity, that of the reaction of an antibody with its antigen, isused to localize tissue and cell specific molecules in situ. Following the introduction of fluorescent labeled antibodies in T950, a large number of molecules of biological interest had been studied with light microscopy, especially antigens involved in the pathogenesis of some diseases. However, with advances in electron microscopy, newer methods were needed which could reveal these reactions at the ultrastructural level. An electron dense label that could be coupled to an antibody without the loss of immunologic activity was desired.


Author(s):  
E. S. Boatman ◽  
G. E. Kenny

Information concerning the morphology and replication of organism of the family Mycoplasmataceae remains, despite over 70 years of study, highly controversial. Due to their small size observations by light microscopy have not been rewarding. Furthermore, not only are these organisms extremely pleomorphic but their morphology also changes according to growth phase. This study deals with the morphological aspects of M. pneumoniae strain 3546 in relation to growth, interaction with HeLa cells and possible mechanisms of replication.The organisms were grown aerobically at 37°C in a soy peptone yeast dialysate medium supplemented with 12% gamma-globulin free horse serum. The medium was buffered at pH 7.3 with TES [N-tris (hyroxymethyl) methyl-2-aminoethane sulfonic acid] at 10mM concentration. The inoculum, an actively growing culture, was filtered through a 0.5 μm polycarbonate “nuclepore” filter to prevent transfer of all but the smallest aggregates. Growth was assessed at specific periods by colony counts and 800 ml samples of organisms were fixed in situ with 2.5% glutaraldehyde for 3 hrs. at 4°C. Washed cells for sectioning were post-fixed in 0.8% OSO4 in veronal-acetate buffer pH 6.1 for 1 hr. at 21°C. HeLa cells were infected with a filtered inoculum of M. pneumoniae and incubated for 9 days in Leighton tubes with coverslips. The cells were then removed and processed for electron microscopy.


Author(s):  
D.E. Brownlee ◽  
A.L. Albee

Comets are primitive, kilometer-sized bodies that formed in the outer regions of the solar system. Composed of ice and dust, comets are generally believed to be relic building blocks of the outer solar system that have been preserved at cryogenic temperatures since the formation of the Sun and planets. The analysis of cometary material is particularly important because the properties of cometary material provide direct information on the processes and environments that formed and influenced solid matter both in the early solar system and in the interstellar environments that preceded it.The first direct analyses of proven comet dust were made during the Soviet and European spacecraft encounters with Comet Halley in 1986. These missions carried time-of-flight mass spectrometers that measured mass spectra of individual micron and smaller particles. The Halley measurements were semi-quantitative but they showed that comet dust is a complex fine-grained mixture of silicates and organic material. A full understanding of comet dust will require detailed morphological, mineralogical, elemental and isotopic analysis at the finest possible scale. Electron microscopy and related microbeam techniques will play key roles in the analysis. The present and future of electron microscopy of comet samples involves laboratory study of micrometeorites collected in the stratosphere, in-situ SEM analysis of particles collected at a comet and laboratory study of samples collected from a comet and returned to the Earth for detailed study.


Author(s):  
N. Ridley ◽  
S.A. Al-Salman ◽  
G.W. Lorimer

The application of the technique of analytical electron microscopy to the study of partitioning of Mn (1) and Cr (2) during the austenite-pearlite transformation in eutectoid steels has been described in previous papers. In both of these investigations, ‘in-situ’ analyses of individual cementite and ferrite plates in thin foils showed that the alloying elements partitioned preferentially to cementite at the transformation front at higher reaction temperatures. At lower temperatures partitioning did not occur and it was possible to identify a ‘no-partition’ temperature for each of the steels examined.In the present work partitioning during the pearlite transformation has been studied in a eutectoid steel containing 1.95 wt% Si. Measurements of pearlite interlamellar spacings showed, however, that except at the highest reaction temperatures the spacing would be too small to make the in-situ analysis of individual cementite plates possible, without interference from adjacent ferrite lamellae. The minimum diameter of the analysis probe on the instrument used, an EMMA-4 analytical electron microscope, was approximately 100 nm.


Author(s):  
J. A. Pollock ◽  
M. Martone ◽  
T. Deerinck ◽  
M. H. Ellisman

Localization of specific proteins in cells by both light and electron microscopy has been facilitate by the availability of antibodies that recognize unique features of these proteins. High resolution localization studies conducted over the last 25 years have allowed biologists to study the synthesis, translocation and ultimate functional sites for many important classes of proteins. Recently, recombinant DNA techniques in molecular biology have allowed the production of specific probes for localization of nucleic acids by “in situ” hybridization. The availability of these probes potentially opens a new set of questions to experimental investigation regarding the subcellular distribution of specific DNA's and RNA's. Nucleic acids have a much lower “copy number” per cell than a typical protein, ranging from one copy to perhaps several thousand. Therefore, sensitive, high resolution techniques are required. There are several reasons why Intermediate Voltage Electron Microscopy (IVEM) and High Voltage Electron Microscopy (HVEM) are most useful for localization of nucleic acids in situ.


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