The technique of cryoultramicrotomy was introduced by Tokuyasu in 1980. The main processes are conducted at low temperature, so it has an advantage to preserve the antigenicity. The procedures are fixation, infusion of sucrose, cutting,
immunolabelling
and heavy metal staining.
The advantages of cryoultramicrotomy are the high success rate to label immunogold and short course (less than 2 days), easy to cut with glass knives, because it is performed at low temperature, And it also gives a chance to perform
immunohistochemical
staining under light microscope.
The disadvantages of cryoultramicrotomy are the high cost(the cryo unit requires around US $ 50.000), constant supply of cheap liquid nitrogen and technical difficulty(the period of training needs more than 3 months in a case of an expert in
electronmicroscopy).
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