Room Temperature Microtomes

Room B01 Cayton Street

Reichert Ultracut Microtome - £ 10 per hour

Leica Microtome (SM 2400 and RM 2135) - £ 5 per hour

The Imaging Facility has 3 bookable Reichert ultracut microtomes ( 2 x E and 1 x S) for sectioning resin embedded specimens for light or  electron microscopy,  and 2 Leica microtomes  (SM 2400 and RM 2135) for sectioning wax embedded specimens for confocal or widefield microscopy. 

Cryosectioning

Room B09 Cayton Street

Cryoultramicrotome - £ 15 per hour

A cryoultramicrotome (Reichert Ultracut S+Leica FCS) is available in Room B09 for preparing cryosections for immunogold labelling studies.

Room B01 Cayton Street

Leica CM3050 Cryostat - £ 5 per hour

A  Leica CM3050 Cryostat is available in Room BO1 for preparing sections for immunoflorescence labelling and imaging via confocal or widefiled microscopy.

Cryo-Preparative Equipment

Leica EMPACT - £ 25 for 4-5 hours

High Pressure Freezing is available via a Leica EMPACT- High pressure freezing system for cells and 2mm diameter tissue specimens destined for freeze substitution into epoxy resin for structural studies or Lowicryl for immunogold labelling.

Leica AFS - £ 100 for a week

Freeze Substitution of aldehyde or cryofixed specimens is achieved using one of two Leica AFS systems, one manual and the other fully automated. Specimens can be embedded into epoxy resin for ultrastructure or acrylic resins for immunolabelling.

Cressington CFE-60 - £ 100 for 4-5 hours

Freeze Fracture/Deep Etch - specimens are prepared using a Cressington CFE-60 desktop freeze fracture unit employing an airlock system that facilitates rapid handling of multiple specimens whilst retaining a clean dry vacuum. The system has high and low angle electron bombardment guns for guns for metal and carbon deposition whose thickness is measured by dedicated quartz crystal monitors. The gun design and power supply permit the use of either tungsten tantalum or platinum carbon as contrasting metal. The sample stage permits both rotary and unidirectional shadowing.
For FESEM imaging the Cressington can also serve as a high resolution sputter coater depositing platinum or chromium at ambient or cryo-temperatures.