Environmental scanning electron microscopy of living mammalian cell cultures

Environmental Scanning Electron Microscopy (ESEM) offers the advantage of visualisation of biological samples in their native hydrated state without preparation. In order to describe grow processes in cell cultures used for tissue engineering, investigations of settlement and interaction on different substrates as well as morphological changes are of interest. For our studies we use CHO (Chinese Hamster Ovary) cells grown on glass substrates as an reference cell culture. The untreated living CHO cells were examined with light microscopy, phase and fluore scence microscopy and with an ESEM (Electro Scan E-3) without and with habitat chamber.