Morphologie von Leberglykogen

The wrapping phenomenon in air-dried and negatively stained preparations

We demonstrate that the interface energies involved in the direct preparation of supramolecular structures onto supporting films leads very frequently to a smooth wrapping of the supporting film around approximately one third to one half of the structure. We conclude that in such cases the structure is more rigid than the supporting film; examples being ribosomes, small viruses and small glass fragments. Other structures are less rigid and become significantly flattened. Complete flattening is frequently observed with empty virus capsids. The sandwich technique, by which a specimen is placed between two supporting films, in general leads to increased flattening. Only in few cases (e.g. ribosomes) are biological particles rigid enough to resist flattening and become wrapped from both sides.

Masking of pleomorphic glycogen sites by methanolic uranyl acetate

Rat liver tissue was fixed in 2.5% glutaraldehyde buffered with cacodylic acid (pH 7.3) for 2 hr, washed twice in buffer, and postfixed in 2% osmium tetroxide at 4 C for 1 hr. The tissue then was dehydrated, infiltrated with and embedded in Epon by routine procedures. The ultrathin sections from this tissue, when stained with spectroscopic grade methanol saturated with uranyl acetate (SMUA) for 1 min followed by aqueous lead citrate (PbCi) (Reynolds 1963) for 5 min at room temperature, showed a uniform staining of all major cellular components except glycogen. The SMUA appeared to be specific for ribonuceloprotein granules, rendering them more prominent in the cytoplasm due to the lack of glycogen staining. The question of glycogen removal from the sections due to SMUA treatment was evulated using various extractions and staining methods. It appeared that SMUA pretreatment alters the subsequent binding ability of lead salts, resulting in lack of glycogen staining, although it does not remove the glycogen from the sections.