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UltrAuFoil - Ultra-Stable Gold Supports for Cryo-Electron Microscopy
Developed in collaboration with leading scientists, UltrAuFoil Holey Gold sample supports simplify structure determination even for challenging and small molecules. During imaging at cryogenic temperatures, traditional carbon supports move, particularly at the beginning of irradiation. This movement blurs images and reduces data quality. UltrAuFoil Holey Gold supports are more conductive, with no differential contraction between the grid and the foil on plunge freezing. This technical improvement minimizes any crinkling of the foil during sample preparation, substantially increasing data quality and efficiency.
Designed at MRC`s Laboratory of Molecular Biology by Dr Christopher J Russo and Dr Lori A Passmore and manufactured exclusively under license by Quantifoil Micro Tools GmbH1, UltrAuFoil® Holey Gold sample supports make structure determination for challenging and small molecules easier.
During imaging at cryogenic temperatures, traditional carbon supports move, particularly at the beginning of irradiation. This movement blurs images and reduces data quality. UltrAuFoil® Holey Gold supports are more conductive, and there is no differential contraction between the grid and the foil on plunge freezing. Therefore there is less crinkling of the foil during sample preparation, resulting in many improvements in data quality.
- Retains your highest resolution data, before the sample accumulates radiation damage, by facilitating the use of the first frames in your movies due to reduced beam-induced motion.1,2
- Increases resolution, by up to 0.5 Å when replacing traditional holey carbon supports with UltrAuFoil®.3
- Reduces image distortion from the accumulation of static and semi-mobile charge as gold is highly conductive at liquid nitrogen temperatures.1
- Protects samples from damage due to accumulating positive charge by neutralizing it with secondary electrons generated by irradiating adjacent gold.1
- Allows biomolecules to retain native structure and by not putting them under mechanical strain from foil crinkling.
- Improves particle distribution as the gold foil is even flatter than carbon, and capable of forming the <200 Å ice layers required for ultra-high resolution data collection on smaller molecules.4
- Simplifies grid surveying due to the high contrast of the gold foil.1