Microwave Assisted Rapid Diagnosis of Plant Virus Diseases by Transmission Electron Microscopy

Investigations of ultrastructural changes induced by viruses are often necessary to clearly identify viral diseases in plants. With conventional sample preparation for transmission electron microscopy (TEM) such investigations can take several days(1,2) and are therefore not suited for a rapid diagnosis of plant virus diseases. Microwave fixation can be used to drastically reduce sample preparation time for TEM investigations with similar ultrastructural results as observed after conventionally sample preparation(3-5). Many different custom made microwave devices are currently available which can be used for the successful fixation and embedding of biological samples for TEM investigations(5-8). In this study we demonstrate on Tobacco Mosaic Virus (TMV) infected Nicotiana tabacum plants that it is possible to diagnose ultrastructural alterations in leaves in about half a day by using microwave assisted sample preparation for TEM. We have chosen to perform this study with a commercially available microwave device as it performs sample preparation almost fully automatically(5) in contrast to the other available devices where many steps still have to be performed manually(6-8) and are therefore more time and labor consuming. As sample preparation is performed fully automatically negative staining of viral particles in the sap of the remaining TMV-infected leaves and the following examination of ultrastructure and size can be performed during fixation and embedding.