Scanning electron microscopy as a tool for evaluating morphology of amyloid structures formed on surface plasmon resonance chips

We demonstrate the use of Scanning Electron microscopy (SEM) in combination with Surface Plasmon Resonance (SPR) to probe and verify the formation of amyloid and its morphology on an SPR chip. SPR is a technique that measures changes in the immobilized weight on the chip surface and is frequently used to probe the formation and biophysical properties of amyloid structures. In this context it is of interest to also monitor the morphology of the formed structures. The SPR chip surface is made of a layer of gold, which represent a suitable material for direct analysis of the surface using SEM. The standard SPR chip used here (CM5-chip, GE Healthcare, Uppsala, Sweden) can easily be disassembled and directly analyzed by SEM. In order to verify the formation of amyloid fibrils in our experimental conditions we analyzed also in-solution produced structures by using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). For further details and experimental findings, please refer to the article published in Journal of Molecular Biology, (Brännström K. et al., 2018) [1]. Refers to: Kristoffer Brännström, Tohidul Islam, Anna L. Gharibyan, Irina Iakovleva, Lina Nilsson, Cheng Choo Lee, Linda Sandblad, Annelie Pamrén, Anders Olofsson. The Properties of Amyloid-β Fibrils Are Determined by their Path of Formation. Journal of Molecular Biology, Volume 430, Issue 13, 22 June 2018, Pages 1940-1949