Courtesy of a grant from the Fondation Roland Bailly, the Tecnai Spirit BioTWIN was acquired and installed in CIME in autumn of 2011 as a TEM instrument dedicated to the high-throughput analysis of biological samples. This 120 kV microscope has primary uses of: TEM of resin embedded samples; pre- and post-embedding immuno electron microscopy; and negative staining of single particles.
- 80-120 kV LaB6 gun
- 0.34nm line resolution
- Low dose imaging mode
- 4k x 4k FEI Eagle CCD camera with high sensitivity scintillator
- Specimen holders: FEI standard single tilt
Transmission electron micrograph on right showing a region of the calyx of Held synapse in the brain of a young mouse. The image shows glutamate containing vesicles (small round circles) arranged in the axon terminal. Also shown is the large densely stained mitochondria (centre). The tissue was chemically fixed, heavy metal stained, and resin embedded, before being sliced at 50 nm thickness. The width of the image shown is 3.5 μm. Image courtesy of Graham Knott.