Bringing SEM and MSI Closer Than Ever Before: Visualizing Aspergillus and Pseudomonas Infection in the Rat Lungs.

Bringing SEM and MSI Closer Than Ever Before: Visualizing Aspergillus and Pseudomonas Infection in the Rat Lungs.

J Fungi (Basel). 2020 Oct 30;6(4):

Authors: Juříková T, Luptáková D, Kofroňová O, Škríba A, Novák J, Marešová H, Palyzová A, Petřík M, Havlíček V, Benada O

Abstract
A procedure for processing frozen rat lung tissue sections for scanning electron microscopy (SEM) from deeply frozen samples initially collected and stored for matrix-assisted laser desorption/ionization mass spectrometry imaging (MALDI-MSI) was developed. The procedure employed slow thawing of the frozen sections while floating on the surface and melting in a fixative solution. After the float-washing step, the sections were dehydrated in a graded ethanol series and dried in a critical point dryer. The SEM generated images with well-preserved structures, allowing for monitoring of bacterial cells and fungal hyphae in the infected tissue. Importantly, the consecutive nonfixed frozen sections were fully compatible with MALDI-MSI, providing molecular biomarker maps of Pseudomonas aeruginosa. The protocol enables bimodal image fusion in the in-house software CycloBranch, as demonstrated by SEM and MALDI-MSI.

PMID: 33143040 [PubMed]

Source: Industry