Focused-ion-beam thinning of frozen-hydrated biological specimens for cryo-electron microscopy

Cryo-electron microscopy can provide high-resolution structural information about cells and organelles in the nearly native, frozen-hydrated state. Applicability, however, is limited by difficulties encountered in preparing suitably thin, vitreously frozen biological specimens. We demonstrate, by cryo-electron tomography of Escherichia coli cells, that a focused ion beam (FIB) can be used to thin whole frozen-hydrated cells in a convenient and essentially artifact-free way.