Fast-freeze snapshot yields new picture of nerve-muscl...( method. What's more during gluteraldhy...)

While slow freezing can create ice crystals that tear cell structures apart, the high-pressure technique, using liquid nitrogen to flash-freeze at minus-180 degrees Celsius, makes ice appear like liquid glass and devoid of destructive crystals.

Cross-sections taken of synapses reveal that membrane packets, or vesicles, of neurotransmitter localize in places scientists have never before seen.

"It tells us that specific proteins are required to transition vesicles in close apposition to pre-synaptic membranes," said Richmond. "That prediction had been made, but hasn't before been demonstrated."

Richmond said the conventional gluteraldhyde fixation technique was the problem with the earlier view of vesicle positioning in nerve synapses, and she predicted that future use of the new technique will open up new discoveries of the roles various proteins play in nerve synapses.

"It's going to revolutionize the way we do this kind of analysis," she said.

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Contact: Paul Francuch
francuch@uic.edu
312-996-3457
University of Illinois at Chicago
7-Sep-2006