Quantifoil UltrAuFoil 2/2 holey gold film coated grids, square array

UltrAuFoil holey gold sample supports have become recognised as the optimum choice to maximise reconstruction quality and resolution. They are now referred to in approximately 500 peer-reviewed publications.

During imaging at cryogenic temperatures, traditional carbon supports move, particularly at the beginning of irradiation. This movement blurs images and reduces data quality. UltrAuFoil Holey Gold supports are more conductive, and there is no differential contraction between the grid and the foil on plunge freezing. Therefore there is less crinkling of the foil during sample preparation, resulting in many improvements in data quality.

Designed at MRC's Laboratory of Molecular Biology by Dr Christopher J Russo and Dr Lori A Passmore and manufactured exclusively under license by Quantifoil Micro Tools GmbH¹, UltrAuFoil Holey Gold sample supports make structure determination for challenging and small molecules easier.

UltrAuFoil Gold supports for better reconstructions with less data.

Features:

• Thickness of gold foil ~500?
• Retains your highest resolution data, before the sample accumulates radiation damage, by facilitating the use of the first frames in your movies due to reduced beam-induced motion.^1,2
• Increases resolution, by up to 0.5 ? when replacing traditional holey carbon supports with UltrAuFoil.³
• Reduces image distortion from the accumulation of static and semi-mobile charge as gold is highly conductive at liquid nitrogen temperatures.¹
• Protects samples from damage due to accumulating positive charge by neutralising it with secondary electrons generated by irradiating adjacent gold.¹
• Allows biomolecules to retain native structure and by not putting them under mechanical strain from foil crinkling.
• Improves particle distribution as the gold foil is even flatter than carbon, and capable of forming the <200? ice layers required for ultra-high resolution data collection on smaller molecules.⁴
• Simplifies grid surveying due to the high contrast of the gold foil.¹

Sizes:

• 200 mesh grids - 2?m diameter hole x 2?m grid spacing
• 300 mesh grids - 1.2?m diameter hole x 1.3?m grid spacing or 0.6um diameter hole x 1um grid spacing

** Please choose carefully, as NO CANCELLATIONS will be accepted from the manufacturer

References:

1. Russo and Passmore. J. Struct. Biol. 193: 33-44 (2016).
2. Russo and Passmore. Science 346: 1377-1380 (2014).
3. Danev et al. Nat. Commun. 12: 4333  (2021).
4. Rice et al. J. Struct. Biol. 204: 38-44 (2018).