In Situ Embedding and Vertical Sectioning for Electron Microscopy of Tissue Cultures Grown on Plastic Petri Dishes

Abstract

Cell cultures, grown on Falcon polystyrene Petri dishes, can be open-face embedded in situ with Araldite and then vertically sectioned for electron microscopy without first separating the embedding resin from the culture dish. The polystyrene dish has cutting properties sufficiently similar to Araldite so that the different plastics adhere firmly to each other during sectioning. Both 1–1.5 μ and 60–100 nm sections are easily obtained. This technique permits ultrastructural studies of cells cultured in vitro while keeping intact the cell-substratum interface.