Images in cardiovascular medicine. Three-dimensional observation of the intracellular membrane structure in human myocardium: high-resolution scanning electron microscopy by the osmium-DMSO-osmium method.

Abstract

Scanning electron microscopy (SEM)⇓ can directly observe the 3D structures of a cell with high resolution. Tanaka and Naguro1 reported a unique SEM method (osmium-DMSO-osmium method) to observe the 3D structure of the membrane system to remove cytoplasmic matrix much more effectively than any other method. With this method, the 3D features of the endoplasmic reticulum, Golgi complex, mitochondria, transverse tubules, intercalated disks, surface vesicles, and sarcolemma of a cell can be clearly observed.1 2 We first applied this method to tissue specimens of human …