Appreciating the Process of Distinguishing Organelles Flashcards
When looking at a prepared sample (e.g. a cell or a group of cells) under a microscope, you can sometimes see things that aren’t actually part of the specimen
These are known as
artefacts
Artefacts can be a variety of things, such as:
dust
air bubbles
fingerprints
These artefacts often occur during the preparation of a sample how does this occur
During preparation, a sample is often squashed or stained, which can generate artefacts
The occurrence of artefacts can be decreased by more careful preparation of samples
Artefacts are common in which microscope and why
Artefacts are common in electron micrographs (especially in samples prepared for viewing using a transmission electron microscope) due to the lengthy treatment required to prepare samples
This was particularly problematic for early research by scientists using the first electron microscopes
To distinguish between artefacts and organelles, they had to repeatedly prepare a specimen in different ways, using different techniques
If they saw a particular object in a specimen prepared using one preparation technique, but not another, the object was more likely to be an artefact than an organelle