About this Research Topic

Background

Combining the high spatial resolution of an electron microscope with the ability of antibodies to specifically bind proteins, immunoelectron microscopy (immuno-EM) started a new era for ultrastructural investigations of the brain, banishing the idea that electron microscopy is a pure morphological approach. For the last two decades, one of the main challenging problems in neuroscience has been determining the precise subcellular localization of signalling proteins. Today, immuno-EM is an essential tool to fill the information gap between biochemistry, cell biology and physiology. This is because, immuno-EM unravels the location of proteins at the subcellular level, which very often cannot be explored with other technical approaches at the light microscopic level. This information is a crucial step for the understanding protein function and interacting partners. The correct localization and subcellular distribution of proteins within the different neuronal compartments is key for normal brain function, therefore protein mis-localization can result in diseased states.

In this Research Topic, we would like to focus on the classical and the recently developed applications of immunoelectron microscopical techniques, to show that all are totally objective approaches that escape any conjecture as to where signalling molecules are localized. Actually, immunoelectron microscopy has opened up new opportunities to examine the brain at a level of detail never previously attained.

All article types accepted by Frontiers in Neuroanatomy are welcome for submission, including original research, reviews, brief research reports or commentary publications, that clarify conceptual or application aspects of subcellular localization of proteins in the brain. Some of these articles will be written by renowned laboratories working on immunoelectron microscopy, many of them the laboratories responsible of recent developments and innovations. Given the relatively narrow background and the advantages and disadvantages inherent to the different techniques, we are sure that readers can obtain useful information to design and proceed with the most appropriate approach in their own projects.

Subjects include but are not limited to:

• Pre-embedding techniques
• Post-embedding techniques
• SDS-FRL
• FIB/SEM and immunoFIB/SEM

Keywords: Electron Microscopy, Pre-embedding, post-embedding, freeze-fracture, FIB/SEM, Synapse

Important note: All contributions to this Research Topic must be within the scope of the section and journal to which they are submitted, as defined in their mission statements. Frontiers reserves the right to guide an out-of-scope manuscript to a more suitable section or journal at any stage of peer review.

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