Focused ion beam-scanning electron microscope: exploring large volumes of atherosclerotic tissue.
Details
Serval ID
serval:BIB_FF8D7AD1CBED
Type
Article: article from journal or magazin.
Collection
Publications
Institution
Title
Focused ion beam-scanning electron microscope: exploring large volumes of atherosclerotic tissue.
Journal
Journal of Microscopy
ISSN
1365-2818 (Electronic)
ISSN-L
0022-2720
Publication state
Published
Issued date
2009
Volume
235
Number
3
Pages
336-347
Language
english
Abstract
Atherogenesis is a pathological condition in which changes in the ultrastructure and in the localization of proteins occur within the vasculature during all stages of the disease. To gain insight in those changes, high-resolution imaging is necessary. Some of these changes will only be present in a small number of cells, positioned in a 'sea' of non-affected cells. To localize this relatively small number of cells, there is a need to first navigate through a large area of the sample and subsequently zoom in onto the area of interest. This approach enables the study of specific cells within their in vivo environment and enables the study of (possible) interactions of these cells with their surrounding cells/environment. The study of a sample in a correlative way using light and electron microscopy is a promising approach to achieve this; however, it is very laborious and additional ultrastructural techniques might be very valuable to find the places of interest. In this report we show that the focused ion beam-scanning electron microscope is a powerful tool to study biological specimens in a correlative way. With this microscope one can scan for the area of interest at low magnification, in this case the atherosclerotic plaque, and subsequently zoom in, for further analysis on an ultrastructural level, rendering valuable and detailed two- and three-dimensional information of, in this case, the endothelial cells and the vessel wall. Moreover, in combination with pre-embedment labelling of surface exposed antigens, the method allows insight into the 3D distribution of these markers.
Keywords
Animals, Atherosclerosis/pathology, Blood Vessels/pathology, Disease Models, Animal, Mice, Mice, Knockout, Microscopy/methods, Microscopy, Electron, Scanning/methods
Pubmed
Create date
28/02/2012 18:59
Last modification date
20/08/2019 16:29