Samples of heparinized blood, or bone marrow aspirates, or cell suspensions prepared from biopsied tissues (nodes, spleen, etc. ) are routinely prepared, after Ficoll-Hypaque concentration of the mononuclear leucocytes, for scanning electron microscopy. One drop of the cell suspension is placed in a moist chamber on a poly-l-lysine pretreated plastic coverslip (Mazia et al., J. Cell Biol. 66:198-199, 1975) and fifteen minutes allowed for cell attachment. Fixation, started in 2. 5% glutaraldehyde in culture medium at room temperature for 30 minutes, is continued in the same fixative at 4°C overnight or longer. Ethanol dehydration is immediately followed by drying at the critical point of CO2 or of Freon 13. An efficient alternative method for ethanol dehydrated cells is to dry the cells at low temperature (-75°C) under vacuum (10-2 Torr) for 30 minutes in an Edwards-Pearse freeze-dryer (de Harven et al., SEM/IITRI/1977, 519-524). This is preceded by fast quenching in supercooled ethanol (between -90 and -100°C).
