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ELECTRON MICROSCOPY UNIT

The EM Unit at CSIR-CDRI houses three major microscopy facilities –

(i)JEOL JEM1400 Transmission Electron Microscope
(ii) FEI Quanta 250 Scanning Electron Microscope and
(iii) Carl Zeiss LSM510 META Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope.

These facilities are primarily used for various research projects within the institute and occasionally by external users. The EM Unit participates and contributes significantly to all disease areas of the institute by using its expertise in electron and confocal microscopy to carry out ultra-structural studies and sub-cellular localization of macromolecules of biological interest.

Our state of the art facility offers advanced expertise in electron microscopy (TEM/SEM), from designing experiments, sample preparation to image analysis and interpretation, for a wide variety of biological samples. We also offer confocal microscopy imaging of user prepared slides. We have experience with a full spectrum of biological specimens /applications along with excellent resources for both research and training.

We invite national and international collaborations and are happy to be able to provide support for industrial, government and academic research. Skill development/training programs and workshops are also organized by this Unit.

Major Equipment and Instrumentation

Model: Jeol JEM 1400 (Jeol Ltd., Tokyo, Japan)

• Easily changeable accelerating voltages from 40-120 KeV
• Tungsten emitter; motorized goniometer
• Magnification up to 300000X
• Equipped with Gatan Erlangshen and Orius CCD cameras
• Anti-contaminator device

High resolution /high contrast lens system; Minimum/low dose imaging for radiation sensitive samples; option for LaB6 emitter; tomography

Resolution: Point: 0.38 nm/lattice: 0.2 nm

Nano-characterization; Negative staining TEM; ultra-structural studies of biological specimens

Electron Microscopy Unit

Model: FEI Quanta 250 (FEI, The Netherlands)

• High Tension 200V – 30 kV; TMP pumped system
• Tungsten emitter
• 2 inch/50 mm 4-axis motorized stage equipped with through-the-lens differential pumping
• Detectors: SE; BSED and LFD
• High vacuum (HV) and low vacuum (LV) modes
• Magnification up to 1000000X

Multi-stub holder can hold upto 7 specimens; Provision for observation of samples with minimum sample prep.

Resolution: 3 nm at 30 kV with SE and 4 nm with BSE detector (HV mode)

Surface morphology analysis of all kinds of conductive and non-conductive samples.

Electron Microscopy Unit

Model: Carl Zeiss LSM 510 META (Carl Zeiss, Germany)

• LSM 510 META with Axio Observer.Z1 inverted microscope with the following objectives – Plan Apo 10X/0.45; Plan Apo 20X/0.8; Plan Apo 40X/0.95 Korr; Plan Apo 63X/1.4 Oil DIC; Plan Apo 63X/1.4 Oil Ph; Plan Apo 100X/1.4 Oil DIC
• 2 photomultiplier tubes, 1 Meta detector and 1 Transmitted Light detector
• LSM / AIM software for imaging and analysis

Multi-colour localization of fluorescent signals; Z-sectioning and 3D reconstruction; Co-localization; Emission fingerprinting; Spectral un-mixing

High resolution multi-colour localization of fluorescent signals; optical sectioning; 2D/3D confocal imaging

Electron Microscopy Unit

•Dr. Kalyan Mitra, Senior Scientist and In-charge EM Unit
•Dr. (Mrs) Kavita Singh, Technical Officer
• Ms. Garima Pant, Technical Assistant
•Mrs. Madhuli Srivastava, Senior Technician

• Ms. Bhanupriya Awasthi, ICMR-SRF
•Mr. Rohit Sahai, DBT-JRF

We also offer the following services to external users on payment basis:

Services offered for TEM/ SEM/confocal	Charges (Rs.) Private industries/Others
TEM (Model: Jeol JEM1400 /120 kV) Negative staining (per sample) Viewing grids / imaging (per hr)	1000/500 3000/2000
SEM (Model: FEI Quanta 250) Specimen Preparation per sample Viewing per hr	1500 2500/1500
Confocal microscopy (Model: Carl Zeiss LSM 510 META) Imaging/Viewing prepared slides (per hr)	3000/2000
Custom carbon coated grids	Rs. 200/- per grid

• 18% GST extra charged.
• Service charges are payable in advance by crossed bank draft in favour of the Director, Central Drug Research Institute, Lucknow-226031.
• Prior booking/appointment has to be confirmed by writing to Dr. K. Mitra (In-charge EM Unit) at [email protected].

1. TEM Facility

2. SEM Facility

3. Confocal Microscopy Facility

	BhanuPriyaAwasthi, Manoj Kathuria, Garima Pant, NeemaKumari and Kalyan Mitra. Plumbagin, a plant-derived naphthoquinone metabolite induces mitochondria mediated apoptosis-like cell death in Leishmaniadonovani: an ultastructural and physiological study. Apoptosis 2016*,27315817
	AshutoshRaghuvanshi, Ajay Kumar Jha, ManojKathuria, BhanuPriyaAwasthi, Deepak Purohit, Kalyan Mitra* and AtulGoel. New visible light excitable donor–acceptor 7-hydroxy-coumarins as blue fluorescent probes for selective staining of vacuoles in yeasts and L. donovani. Journal of Mat.Chem B. 2017*,5, 2580-2587.
	Hasanain M, Bhattacharjee A, Pandey P, Ashraf R, Singh N, Sharma S, Vishwakarma AL, Datta D, Mitra K, Sarkar J. α-Solanine induces ROS-mediated autophagy through activation of endoplasmic reticulum stress and inhibition of Akt/mTOR pathway. Cell Death Dis. 2015 Aug 27;6:e1860. doi:10.1038/cddis.2015.219. PubMed PMID: 26313911.
	Bhaskar, Mitra K, Kuldeep J, Siddiqi MI, Goyal N. The TCP1γ subunit of Leishmania donovani forms a biologically active homo-oligomeric complex. FEBS J. 2015 Dec;282(23):4607-19. doi: 10.1111/febs.13521. Epub 2015 Oct 26. PubMed PMID:26395202.
	Kathuria M, Bhattacharjee A, Sashidhara KV, Singh SP, Mitra K. Induction of mitochondrial dysfunction and oxidative stress in Leishmania donovani by orally active clerodane diterpene. Antimicrob Agents Chemother. 2014* Oct;58(10):5916-28. doi: 10.1128/AAC.02459-14. Epub 2014 Jul 28. PubMed PMID: 25070112; PubMed Central PMCID: PMC4187897
	4) Goel A, Sharma A, Kathuria M, Bhattacharjee A, Verma A, Mishra PR, Nazir A, Mitra K. New fluoranthene FLUN-550 as a fluorescent probe for selective staining and quantification of intracellular lipid droplets. Org Lett. 2014 Feb 7;16(3):756-9. doi: 10.1021/ol403470d. Epub 2014 Jan 10. PubMed PMID: 24410145.