ABSTRACT
Electron microscopy (EM) has played an important role in determinations of the structure and function of biopolymers [1,2]. Crystalline polysaccha rides have been studied extensively with various EM techniques to deter mine the features of organized polysaccharide structures. For example, crystalline amylose [3], chitosan [4], chitin [5], and cellulose [6] have re cently been investigated. Transmission electron microscopy (TEM) has been applied to isolated carbohydrate polymer molecules to determine poly saccharide shapes, the distributions of molecular weights and end-to-end distances, and the inherent chain stiffness of the polymer chains [7,8]. Typically, it has been necessary in TEM studies of individual carbohydrate polymers to use contrast enhancement procedures that limit the spatial resolution to 1-2 nm.
