Electron Microscopy of Model Systems

The volume covers the preparation and analysis of model systems for biological electron microscopy. The volume has chapters about prokaryotic as well as eukaryotic systems that are used as so-called model organisms in modern cell biology. These systems include the most popular systems, such as budding and fission yeast, the roundworm C. elegans, the fly Drosophila, zebrafish, mouse, and Arabidopsis, but also organisms that are less frequently used in cell biology, such as Chlamydomonas, Dictyostelium, Trypanosoma, faltworms, Axolotl and others. In addition, tissues and tissue culture systems are also covered. These systems are used for very diverse areas of cell biology, such as cell division, abscission, intracellular transport, cytoskeletal organization, tissue regeneration and others. Moreover, this issue presents the currently most important methods for the preparation of biological specimens. This volume, however, is not a classic EM methods book. The methods are not the main focus of this issue. The main goal here is to cover the methods in the context of the specific requirements of specimen preparation for each model organism or systems. This will be the first compendium covering the various aspects of sample preparation of very diverse biological systems.

• Covers the preparation and analysis of model systems for biological electron microscopy
• Includes the most popular systems but also organisms that are less frequently used in cell biology
• Presents the currently most important methods for the preparation of biological specimens
• First compendium covering the various aspects of sample preparation of very diverse biological systems

Thomas Müller-Reichert is a Professor of Structural Cell Biology at the Technische Universität Dresden (TU Dresden, Germany). He is interested in how the microtubule cytoskeleton is modulated within cells to fulfill functions in mitosis, meiosis and abscission. The Müller-Reichert lab is mainly applying correlative light microscopy and electron tomography to study the 3D organization of microtubules in early embryos and meiocytes of the nematode Caenorhabditis elegans, and also in mammalian cells in culture. He has published over 75 papers and edited several volumes of the Methods in Cell Biology series on electron microscopy and CLEM.

TMR obtained his PhD at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology (ETH) in Zurich and moved afterwards for a post-doc to the EMBL in Heidelberg (Germany). He was a visiting scientist with Dr. Kent McDonald (UC Berkeley, USA). Together with Paul Verkade, he set up the electron microscope facility at the newly founded Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (MPI-CBG). Since 2010 he is a scientific group leader and head of the Core Facility Cellular Imaging (CFCI) of the Faculty of Medicine Carl Gustav Carus of the TU Dresden. He acted as president of the German Society for Electron Microscopy (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Elektronenmikroskopie, DGE) from 2018 to 2019.
He taught numerous courses and workshops on high-pressure freezing and Correlative Light and Electron Microscopy.