The Study of Cell Line Preparation Techniques for Scanning Electron Microscope Using Hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS)

Authors

  • Wasinee Thamsathit School of Science, King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang
  • Nuttaporn Manapradit School of Science, King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang
  • Pisan Sukwisute School of Science, King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang

DOI:

https://doi.org/10.14456/jmu.2025.20

Keywords:

Drying, Cell line, Scanning Electron Microscope, Hexamethyldisilazane

Abstract

          Scientific Instruments Centre, Faculty of Science, King Mongkut's Institute of Technology Ladkrabang have a laboratory for culturing animal cells. This laboratory provides services for cultivating cell lines on various materials, and many users need to study the physical characteristics of cell lines using scanning electron microscopy. Therefore, a study was conducted on preparing the African green monkey kidney fibroblast (Vero) and Human oral cavity carcinoma cell lines (KB). The samples were dried using 50, 70, and 100% concentrations of hexamethyldisilazane (HMDS) at 3, 5, and 10 minutes. Count the number of individual and aggregated cells that appeared well-shaped with minimal occurrence of flattened cells.

          The results found that 100% concentration of HMDS at 3 minutes was the best condition for drying step. Vero and KB cell lines had 84.73 and 92.45% intact physical characteristics, respectively. Compared with Critical Point Drying (CPD) method, the best physical characterization of Vero and KB cell lines has 85.23 and 92.38%, respectively, which was not significantly different at the 95% confidence level.

          This concludes that drying step of HMDS has equal quality to CPD. The method also proved useful for drying Vero and KB cell lines for SEM imaging.

References

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Published

2025-08-28

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Section

Research Articles