States of the art of immunoelectron microscopy in Japan

In Japan, there are several laboratories which routinely utilize immunoelectron microscopy (IEM) for their investigation and participate in the development of methods for IEM. As a result, some major advances are in the making. IEM methods used in Japan may be divided roughly into four categories: 1) antibodies are reacted with tissues before the tissues are embedded in plastics (pre-embedding method); 2) antibodies are reacted with tissues after the tissues are embedded in plastics (post-embedding method); 3) tissues reacted with antibodies are deep-etched and the site of antigens are recognized in the replicas; and 4) that uses scanning electron microscopes. Samples from each category are introduced utilizing photographs provided by investigators, representing the states of the art of IEM in Japan.