Figure 5. Cryo fixation preserves larger numbers of vesicles at the pre-synaptic membrane.
(A) Electron tomography of a 200-nm thick section shows a cryo-fixed (upper) synapse with a large number of vesicles close to the presynaptic membrane in comparison with a similar chemically fixed synapse (lower). In each case three sample images are shown from complete tomographic series. Three-dimensional reconstructions of this region (right hand images) show all the vesicles (red) in relation to the presynaptic membrane (blue). (B) Measurements of the distance of vesicles from the presynaptic membrane show that more vesicles are arranged closer (0–30 nm) to the synapse after cryo fixation (p < 0.0001, unpaired Student's t-test).
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.7554/eLife.05793.014
Figure 5—source data 1. Data values and statistics underlying Figure 5B.
elife05793s005.xlsx (44.7KB, xlsx)
DOI: 10.7554/eLife.05793.015
Figure 5—figure supplement 1. Synapses found on dendritic spines were the same length.
Data are represented as mean ± SD. Unpaired Student's t-test assessed statistical significance; p = 0.561.