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Science 30 June 1967:
Vol. 156. no. 3783, pp. 1737 - 1738
DOI: 10.1126/science.156.3783.1737
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Articles

Coordination Polymers of Osmium: The Nature of Osmium Black

Jacob S. Hanker 1, Franz Kasler 1, Martin G. Bloom 1, Jay S. Copeland 1, and Arnold M. Seligman 1

1 Departments of Surgery, Sinai Hospital of Baltimore and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Maryland; Department of Chemistry, University of Maryland, College Park

The design of cytochemical reagents that yield osmiophilic products from which an osmium black may be derived on exposure to osmium tetroxide has resulted in new methods described previously for the ultrastructural demonstration of enzyme activity and functional groups of macromolecules with the electron microscope. Attempts to determine the nature of the osmium black end products have been frustrated by their insolubility. The preparation of watersoluble analogs and their characterization as polymers suggest that the insoluble osmium blacks are coordination polymers. This is consonant with the unusually favorable properties of osmium black in electron microscopy. Although polymers of osmium have frequently been postulated as the end products of reaction of osmium tetroxide with tissue conistituents or with other organic compounds, this is the first example of their characterization.


THIS ARTICLE HAS BEEN CITED BY OTHER ARTICLES:
Osmiophilic Polymer Generation: Catalysis by Transition Metal Compounds in Ultrastructural Cytochemistry.
J. S. Hanker, W. A. Anderson, and F. E. Bloom (1972)
Science 175, 991-993
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Science. ISSN 0036-8075 (print), 1095-9203 (online)