Electron Microscopy Instrumentation

Glacios™ Cryo Transmission Electron Microscope equipped with an AMETEK Gatan K3 Direct Electron Detector

Glacios™ Cryo Transmission Electron Microscope

The Glacios™ is a 200kV Cryo Transmission Electron Microscope (TEM). It is equipped with an AMETEK Gatan K3 direct electron detector. This instrument is routinely used for screening and data collection for frozen grids.

JEOL 3200FS equipped with an AMETEK Gatan K3 Direct Electron Detector

JEOL 1400

The JEOL 1400 microscope is a 120kV transmission electron microscope (TEM) with a Lab6 source. It is equipped with a Gatan Ultrascan 4000 CCD camera. The 1400 is routinely used for screening negative stained and cryo samples.

Cressington 308R Carbon Coater

Cressington 308R carbon coater

The Cressington 308R Carbon Coater is designed to evaporate and deposit ultra-thin layers of carbon onto mica, which is then floated on DI water and deposited onto grids to use in sample preparation for transmission electron microscopy (TEM).

Solarus Plasma Cleaner

The Gatan Solarus Plasma Cleaner can be used to remove hydrocarbon contamination on TEM samples. It can be used with gas mixtures such as argon/oxygen or air. It is also used for hydrophilization of TEM carbon support films, which have the tendency to be hydrophobic. The interactive touch screen allows users to select pre-programmed protocols for better reproducibility.

PELCO easiGlow Discharge Cleaning System

The PELCO easiGlow™ Discharge Cleaning System is commonly used to make TEM support films or grids hydrophilic using air. A touch screen is used for operation and display of parameters.

Turbo Pumping Stations with Cryoholders

Turbo Pumping Station with Cryoholders

Two turbo pumping stations with Cryoholders are available for use. These stations are used for bakeout of the cryoholder zeolite desiccant and for storage of holders under vacuum when not in use.

Norhof Dewars for Automated Liquid Nitrogen Delivery

Norhof Dewars for Liquid Nitrogen

Norhof liquid nitrogen autofillers with 35 l Dewars are used for support of continuous data collection on the JEOL 3200FS.

Transfer Stations

Transfer Station

Transfer Stations are available for low temperature transfer of frozen-hydrated samples for CryoEM

Grids for Sample Preparation

Grids, tweezers and other tools are available for use in negative stain and frozen-hydrated specimen preparation. We keep on hand several types of commercially carbon coated grids such as continuous carbon square mesh (Cu, Au), C-flat^TMholey carbon and Lacey carbon. Users must undergo training through the Northwestern University Office of Radiation Safety before handling Uranyl Formate or Uranyl Acetate.

SerialEM, Leginon and Digital Micrograph for Data Collection

Leginon and Digital Micrograph for data collection

SerialEM, Leginon and Digital Micrograph are routinely used for Data Collection on the JEOL 3200FS and JEOL 1400.

Vitrobot

The FEI Vitrobot can control the temperature and humidity during plunge-freezing grids for cryoEM. Users are encouraged to bring their own Vitrobot tweezers for plunge-freezing.

nanosoft Ethane Condenser

Ethane Condenser

The ethane condenser allows for rapid ethane condensing. The condenser can be used free of charge.

Gatan CP3 Cryoplunger

CP3

The Gatan CP3 is an instrument used for plunge-freezing grids to vitrify cryoEM samples.

Acknowledgements

All manuscripts and grants presenting work supported by this core should include the following acknowledgement:

This work used resources of the Northwestern University Structural Biology Facility, which is generously supported by NCI CCSG P30 CA060553 grant awarded to the Robert H. Lurie Comprehensive Cancer Center.

If the K2 detector was used:
The Gatan K2 direct electron detector was purchased with funds provided by the Chicago Biomedical Consortium with support from the Searle Funds at The Chicago Community Trust.

If the K3 detector was used: We acknowledge the use of the Ametek K3 direct electron detector, which was generously provided by Professor Robert A. Lamb, Ph.D., Sc.D., HHMI investigator.

If LS-CAT was used: We acknowledge this research used resources of the Advanced Photon Source, a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) Office of Science User Facility operated for the DOE Office of Science by Argonne National Laboratory under Contract No. DE-AC02-06CH11357. Use of the LS-CAT Sector 21 was supported by the Michigan Economic Development Corporation and the Michigan Technology Tri-Corridor (Grant 085P1000817)