Further details will be shared here and announced on the AT- Focus Interest Group (FIG) mailing list.
What is Array Tomography?
Ultramicrotomy and serial section collection on support.
Array tomography (AT) is applied for volume imaging and targeted 2D or 3D acquisition.
Anatomy originates from the Greek ana (‘through’) and tome (‘cutting’) which refers to the dissection procedure which, historically, was required for the understanding of the body structure. This idea of tissue slicing has been carried over to modern three-dimensional visualization of biological structures at the nanometer scale. A group of volume electron microscopy (EM) techniques summarized as array tomography (AT) is based on serial ultramicrotomy (cutting many sections less than a micrometer in thickness) of the sample, section collection onto support, and serial scanning EM (SEM) imaging.
While originally developed for EM, physical cutting of ultrathin sections was found to improve the axial resolution and provide accessibility to the sample for molecular labeling, beneficial for both, EM and light microscopy. Moreover, the same or adjacent sections can be imaged with different modalities in correlative or even conjugate microscopy.