Enhanced visualization of polysaccharides from aqueous suspensions

Aqueous suspensions of polysaccharides such as those prepared for domestic and industrial applications or present in natural waters, although difficult to visualize by conventional transmission electron microscopy (TEM) because of their poor electron density, can be characterized at the ultrastructural level by using milden bloc staining and contrast enhancement by energy-filtered TEM (EF-TEM). The advantages and drawbacks of the proposed method are discussed in relation to the different parameters controlling the quality of final images. It is shown, with synthetic polysaccharides, purified algal fibrils and lacustrine exocellular polymers as key examples, that optimizing specimen preparation and visualization parameters allows unbiased identification of organic substructures never revealed or strongly degraded by classical microscopic procedures.