The EMS Staining plate for Electron Microscopy was developed by Dr. Miguel Berrios, at SUNY at Stony Brook, Dept of Pharmacological Sciences, School of Medicine, New York.
The chemical etching process, antibody incubations and final staining with heavy metal salts of each grid is performed in the small cone-shaped wells on the EMS staining plate.
The EMS Staining Plate for electron microscopy post-embedding staining and immunohistochemistry offers several advantages over all other commercially available staining devices. The base plate is a solid piece of chemical-resistant silicone 127.5 mm long, 85.5 mm wide, 11.5 mm thick with 96 cone-shaped wells organized (like the microtitration plate) in parallel rows of eight, using the lid of a 96-well Falcon 3072 Microtest™ III Plate as a cover. The base has two notches to serve for orientation and a 1.5 mm x 4.4 mm deep lip where the cover rests. Each well is an inverted cone 7 mm in diameter and 2 mm deep. Grids either float or rest at the bottom of each well. The wells allow incubation of a grid in 12-60 microliters of solution without reagent loss due to adsorption or cross contamination, even when the plate is tilted up at 70°. Due to the shape of the well, the flat surface of the grids never come into contact with the walls of the well, both facilitating sample staining and grid recovery.
Plates made from silicone offer two advantages
- Resistant to all chemicals and solvents
- During manipulation of the grids in the well there is no risk of damaging the fine points of the tweezers
Reference: Berrios, Miguel; (1991), A Staining Plate For Electron Microscopy. 48: 90-92.