High-contrast en bloc staining of neuronal tissue for field emission scanning electron microscopy

Abstract

Conventional heavy metal post staining methods on thin sections lend contrast but often cause contamination. To avoid this problem, we tested several en bloc staining techniques to contrast tissue in serial sections mounted on solid substrates for examination by Field Emission Scanning Electron Microscope (FESEM). Because FESEM section imaging requires that specimens have higher contrast and greater electrical conductivity than transmission electron microscope (TEM) samples, our technique utilizes osmium impregnation (OTO) to make the samples conductive while heavily staining membranes for segmentation studies. Combining this step with other classic heavy metal en bloc stains including uranyl acetate, lead aspartate, copper sulfate and lead citrate produced clean, highly contrasted TEM and SEM samples of insect, fish, and mammalian nervous system. This protocol takes 7–15 days to prepare resin embedded tissue, cut sections and produce serial section images.