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An Historical Account Of The Development And Applications Of The Negative Staining Technique To The Electron Microscopy Of Viruses
Author(s) -
Horne R. W.,
Wildy P.
Publication year - 1979
Publication title -
journal of microscopy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.569
H-Index - 111
eISSN - 1365-2818
pISSN - 0022-2720
DOI - 10.1111/j.1365-2818.1979.tb00234.x
Subject(s) - electron microscope , negative stain , staining , resolution (logic) , microscopy , opacity , electron micrographs , biology , biophysics , optics , nanotechnology , chemistry , materials science , physics , computer science , artificial intelligence , genetics
SUMMARY A brief historical account of the development and applications of the negative staining techniques to the study of the structure of viruses and their components as observed in the electron microscope is presented. Although the basic method of surrounding or embedding specimens in opaque dyes was used in light microscopy dating from about 1884, the equivalent preparative techniques applied to electron microscopy were comparatively recent. The combination of experiments on a sophisticated bacterial virus and the installation of a high resolution electron microscope in the Cavendish Laboratory, Cambridge, during 1954, subsequently led to the analysis of several important morphological features of animal, plant and bacterial viruses. The implications of the results from these early experiments on viruses and recent developments in negative staining methods for high resolution image analysis of electron micrographs are also discussed.