This award is funded under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 (Public Law 111-5).
This Major Research Instrumentation-Recovery and Reinvestment (MRI-R2) award funds the acquisition of a 120 kV electron microscopy system and supporting sample preparation equipment at the University of Arkansas Medical Sciences Campus(UAMS). The equipment is tailored to the needs of a group of basic scientists in the Departments of Physiology and Biophysics, Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, and Neurobiology and Developmental Sciences at UAMS. The new microscope is also accessible to investigators at other regional institutions. This acquisition is a major step toward establishing the only such biological electron microscope facility in the state of Arkansas. Research utilizing the new system includes studies to understand elements of virology, golgi apparatus function, neuronal physiology, endocrine secretion, and many more topics. Both undergraduate and graduate students will benefit from the acquisition of this instrumentation as investigators are engaged in the training of Ph.D. students in research, and each summer there is significant participation of undergraduates in the collaborating laboratories. Results from the studies enabled by the new instrumentation will be disseminated in peer-reviewed journals, and through students and faculty presentations at regional and national meetings.
The goals of this Major Research Instrumentation award were two-fold: 1) to establish a biological electron microscope facility in a location central to the entire state of Arkansas, namely the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock, and 2) to accomplish biological research using that facility. At the time of the award, there was no biological electron microscope facility within Arkansas. The two existing electron microscopes, one at the University of Arkansas, Little Rock and the other at the University of Arkansas, Fayetteville, were both configured for other purposes, namely, material sciences/cryo-electron microscopy, and lacked any capability for state-of-art biological sample preparation. The newly built facility combines state-of-the-art biological sample preparation using grant funded Leica and FEI equipment for rapid sample freezing, essential steps for the preservation of structure, with the ability to section samples with a state-of-the-art Leica ultra-microtome. For many biological purposes, samples must be sectioned in order to reach sufficient thinness for electron beam penetration. The actual electron microscope funded was a FEI Tecnai TF20 with cryobox. The FEI TF20 was chosen because of its established record in electron tomography. Electron tomography is a method for visualizing the 3-dimensional distribution of structures within cell at membrane resolution and chemical groups within proteins at near atomic resolution. The cryobox permits the visualization of frozen, hydrated samples. Most biological samples are indeed hydrated. The actual construction costs of the facility were paid by the College of Medicine and the Chancellor’s office at UAMS. Because of this funding, electron and light microscopy could be housed in a unified facility, the Digital Microscopy Laboratory at UAMS. Having both light and electron microscopy together in the same facility enables samples labeled with fluorescent probes such as antibodies or green fluorescent protein to be first visualized by high sensitivity light microscopy and then subsequently by much higher resolution electron microscopy. The housing of high resolution, biological electron microscope facility at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) in Little Rock provided a central location within a 2.5 hour drive of anywhere in the state. Over the course of the grant, the advantage of that central location was proven through usage by investigators as diverse as the Arkansas Fish and Game Department and undergraduates from Quachita Baptist College. Much of the research usage of the sample preparation equipment and electron microscope has come from UAMS. At least 13 different UAMS laboratories have used the facility. Much time and effort by the Storrie laboratory has gone into bringing rapid sample freezing technology to UAMS. The Luapshin laboratory has devoted considerable effort to bringing immunolocalization of cellular protein technology at the electron microscope level to UAMS. Both of technologies are now being routinely used to solve problems in molecular cell biology. In brief, the role of protein machines in the 3-dimensional organization of cellular organelles has been characterized with an ~100-fold improvement in resolution. The Storrie laboratory has found new roles of small GTP cleaving enzymes in Golgi organization and the Lupshin laboratory has concentrated on the role(s) of a protein complex, the COG complex, in Golgi organization. The Golgi apparatus has a central importance within molecular cell biology because it is the site of much protein modification and acts as the central hub within the secretory pathway for the routing of proteins to various destinations. Secretion is key to how humans deliver insulin to the blood stream and digestive enzymes ot the gut. Four research papers in leading journals have been published to date. In conclusion, the two goals of the original grant proposal: creation of a central, biological electron microscopy facility and its use in quality research projects have both been accomplished.
