Cryofixation rapidly preserves cytoskeletal arrays of leaf epidermal cells revealing microtubule co-alignments between neighbouring cells and adjacent actin and microtubule bundles in the cortex.

Accurate preservation of microtubule and actin microfilament arrays is crucial for investigating their roles in plant cell development. Aldehyde fixatives such as paraformaldehyde or glutaraldehyde preserve cortical microtubule arrays but, unless actin microfilaments are stabilized with drugs such as m-maleimidobenzoyl N-hydroxysuccinimide ester (MBS), ethylene glycol bis[sulfosuccinimidylsuccinate] (sulfo-EGS) or phalloidin, their arrays are often poorly preserved. Cryofixation, used primarily for electron microscopy, preserves actin microfilaments well but is used rarely to fix plant cells for optical microscopy. We developed a novel whole-mount cryofixation method to preserve microtubule and microfilament arrays within Tradescantia virginiana leaf epidermal cells for investigation using confocal microscopy. Cortical microtubule arrays were often oriented in different directions on the internal and external faces of the epidermal cells. A number of arrays were aligned in several directions, parallel to microtubules of neighbouring cells. Actin microfilaments were particularly well preserved possibly due to the speed with which they were immobilized. No transverse cortical microfilament arrays were observed. On occasion, we observed co-aligned microfilament and microtubule bundles lying adjacent to the plasma membrane and positioned side by side suggesting a potential direct interaction between the cytoskeletal filaments at these locations. Cryofixation is therefore a valuable tool to investigate the interactions between cytoskeletal arrays in plant cells using confocal microscopy.