DECORATION AND SHADOWING OF FREEZE-ETCHED CATALASE CRYSTALS

Decoration replication was applied under the conditions of conventional freeze etching, using catalase crystals as test specimen. The information obtained by decoration is compared with results from 'high resolution shadowing' and an attempt is made to correlate the surface relief with the decoration pattern. The aim of this study is to provide guidelines for assessing freeze-etch replicas and to demonstrate that preferential nucleation interferes with strict obedience to geometrical rules. The usefulness of decoration as a technique in its own right to study the ultrastructure of frozen-hydrated surfaces is explored.