GFP immunogold staining, from light to electron microscopy, in mammalian cells.

GFP has emerged as an important reporter for monitoring gene expression, protein localization, cell transformation and cell lineage. The development of GFP as a marker in many different biological systems has emphasized the need to image GFP at high resolution. GFP immunogold labeling with colloidal gold particles becomes essential for electron microscopy (EM) ultrastructural detection. Because of the small size, colloidal gold particles require silver enhancement, a procedure to increase the size of the particle as well as gold toning to stabilize the silver layer. GFP preembedding immunogold staining enables high quality cellular-ultrastructural EM analysis mainly for two reasons, on one …