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Updated: May 31, 2026

Rapid One-step Enzymatic Synthesis and All-aqueous Purification of Trehalose Analogues
Published on: February 17, 2017
The use of trehalose in the preparation of specimens for molecular electron microscopy
Po-Lin Chiu1, Deborah F Kelly, Thomas Walz
1Department of Cell Biology, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA 02115, USA.
Abstract:
Biological specimens have to be prepared for imaging in the electron microscope in a way that preserves their native structure. Two-dimensional (2D) protein crystals to be analyzed by electron crystallography are best preserved by sugar embedding. One of the sugars often used to embed 2D crystals is trehalose, a disaccharide used by many organisms for protection against stress conditions. Sugars such as trehalose can also be added to negative staining solutions used to prepare proteins and macromolecular complexes for structural studies by single-particle electron microscopy (EM). In this review, we describe trehalose and its characteristics that make it so well suited for preparation of EM specimens and we review specimen preparation methods with a focus on the use of trehalose.
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