Linkam CMS196 CRYO-Correlative Microscopy Stage

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Linkam CMS196 Cryo-CLEM stage : overview

The Linkam CMS196 is a cryo-CLEM instrument to enable the full workflow of CLEM. Apart from maintaining the sample vitrified by means of liquid nitrogen cooling it provides proven capabilities to safely handle and transfer your cryo samples and image them with optical microscopy while keeping them free of contamination at all times. The integrated motorized, encoded stage of the latest model, together with the new LINK software enables high resolution maps of the grid to be produced quickly and easily. This provides a straight forward method of coordinate mapping required to locate the same sample in the fluorescence microscope as well as in the EM.

Although the Linkam CMS196 was designed specifically to solve the problem of how to get vitrified EM grids from the fluorescent microscope into the cryo TEM without devitrification and contamination through condensation, the stage also had to be optimized optically to enable the use of high NA lenses.

Up to 3 grids are loaded into a specially designed cassette which is transported from your plunge freezer in a small sealed container.  The container is loaded into a pre-cooled dry sample loading chamber fitted on your upright fluorescent microscope.  The cassette is then easily loaded onto the viewing bridge using special manipulation tools.

Why cryo-CLEM?

Electron microscopy (EM) provides structural information at very high resolution. However, it can give only restricted insight into biological and chemical processes due to limitations in staining and sample preparation processes. Fluorescence microscopy on the other hand is a very sensitive method to detect biological, chemical and genetic processes and events inside living cells.

Cryo-CLEM brings it all together: it is a new and emerging technique to combine the individual advantages from both Fluorescence and EM by imaging the same sample location with both techniques and superimposing the complementing information.

“We are using the cryo-correlative stage to screen cells trapped in a thin layer of ice prior to imaging the samples at synchrotrons in Oxford, Barcelona and Berlin. The team at Linkam Scientific have helped to drive forward our research, quickly adapting and refining the technology to deliver an elegant, flexible, user-friendly stage.” Dr. Lucy Collinson –Head of Electron Microscopy, London Research Institute

Imaging of vitrified samples under cry-conditions

In order to make a biological sample compatible with the vacuum conditions found in EM and preserve the structural detail, samples are embedded in vitrified “glass like” ice and need to be kept below -140°C. Any contact with moisture contained in the air has to be avoided since ice crystals would form immediately and contaminate the sample. Under cryo-conditions the fluorescence signals structural detail is preserved and photobleaching is significantly reduced.

Developed in collaboration with Prof. Bram Koster’s team at Leiden University Medical Centre (LUMC) in the Netherlands, the CMS196 is the result of 4 years of R&D.

“The correlative stage was developed out of the necessity for a tool that uses fluorescence microscopy to help localize structures of interest in samples for high resolution cryo electron  microscopy imaging. Over the years the system has evolved into an effective and efficient instrument that enables the imaging of cryo electron microscope images after light microscopy characterization routinely.”  Prof. A.J. Koster – LUMC