Longer-Lasting Electron-Based Microscopy of Single Molecules in Aqueous Medium

Getting heavy with electron microscopy

25 December 2018

Swapping ‘heavy’ water for regular water should allow scientists to use transmission electron microscopy (TEM) to observe biological materials in water using for longer before damage occurs.

Although a powerful technology for studying molecules in dry or frozen states, the high-energy electron beams used in TEM to probe molecules in water generate an electric charge that breaks chemical bonds and damage specimens.

Now, a team of scientists at the Institute for Basic Sciences has used a form of water called heavy water (D₂O), which contains deuterium instead of hydrogen, when using TEM to observe fragile biological molecules. Furthermore, they encapsulated the samples in a tiny pocket between two graphene sheets to protect them from the electrical charge produced by TEM.

The scientists found that organic molecules dissolved in D₂O lasted 2 to 5 times longer than those dissolved in water.

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References

1. ACS Nano 12, 8572–8578 (2018). doi: 10.1021/acsnano.8b04190