[Immunocryoultramicrotomy (gelatin embedding and polyvinyl alcohol embedding methods): its procedures, usefulness, and limitations--application to human blood cells].

Cryoultramicrotomy applying immunogold staining (immunocryoultramicrotomy) is a useful method to demonstrate the localization of antigens in biological specimens. Recently, we have developed a modified method for immunocryoultramicrotomy using gelatin as an embedding medium (gelatin embedding method). In this study, we compared the results obtained by the gelatin embedding method with those obtained by a conventional method applying polyvinyl alcohol embedding (PVA embedding method). Both methods were easy to perform, and yielded fairly satisfactory results in terms of detecting antigens and preserving ultrastructures. According to the gelatin embedding method, membranes enclosing organelles revealed a negatively stained image, and organelles were clearly delineated by an electron-lucent layer. In contrast, a positively stained image was obtained by the PVA embedding method; however, the delineation of organelles was somewhat inferior to that of the gelatin embedding method. Although these methods were useful to detect various biological antigens, they had some limitations in sensitivity. Prior glutaraldehyde fixation was requisite for cryosectioning and preserving ultrastructures, but it caused the loss of antigenicity to some extent. This should be taken into account when evaluating the results obtained by immunocryoultramicrotomy. In this paper, we present the detailed procedures of the gelatin embedding method, as well as the PVA embedding method, and demonstrate the localization of myeloperoxidase, lysozyme and CD3 molecules in human blood cells using both methods.