Jsm it300 intouchscope

A Scanning Electron Microscope (JEOL JSM-IT300 InTouchScope™, Tokyo, Japan) was used to study the surface morphology and topography; as well as to confirm the loading of the drug onto the stent. With the help of double-sided tape, the stent was firmly attached to the aluminum stub. A thin layer of gold was sputter-coated onto this arrangement, which induced conductivity in the specimens. After processing the sample, it was then subjected to SEM analysis.

The SEM was performed for one isolate each of E. jeanselmei, E. oligosperma, and E. arunalokei sp. nov. The coverslips from slide culture were used for SEM as previously described (Alves et al., 2013 (link)). Briefly, the culture growth over the coverslip was fixed using 2.5% glutaraldehyde followed by gentle washing with phosphate-buffered saline. Then gradient dehydration was performed using different concentration of ethanol (60, 70, 80% and absolute ethanol) followed by air-drying of the sample. The coverslip was loaded onto SEM stub with carbon tape and sputter-coated with platinum at 20 mA current for 30 s and placed onto the SEM stage for reading using the scanning electron microscope JSM I T300 InTouchScope (Jeol, Tokyo, Japan) with low vacuum mode (pressure range from 10 to 650 Pa). All samples were screened at ×250 magnification to identify the area of growth followed by subsequent visualization at ×1,000, ×2,500, and ×5,000 magnification.