Category: Tissue Preservation

Neurological disorders & 3D Histology

Microglia marked by IBA-1 (magenta) cluster around β-amyloid plaques (cyan) in brain of 7-month-old homozygous ARTE10 (disease model #16347) female mouse from Taconic Biosciences. SmartSPIM 15X objective.

Neuroscientists studying major neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, and Huntington’s diseases frequently use transgenic mouse models to evaluate disease progression and the impact of potential therapies. For instance, mice with overexpression of Alzheimer’s related proteins (e.g. amyloid precursor protein, APP) or mutations that trigger pathology (see Jankowsky and Zheng 2017) demonstrate the hallmarks of… Continue reading Neurological disorders & 3D Histology

Superior tissue preservation with SHIELD

Retrogradely labeled motor cortical neurons projecting to striatum using rabies virus expressing eGFP. 10x, Sample courtesy of Prof. Byungkook Lim's lab at UCSD.

In this blog, we will provide key insights in the first step of this journey: tissue preservation using SHIELD. SHIELD is a tissue-gel hybridization method using polyfunctional, flexible epoxides to preserve tissue architecture, endogenous fluorescence, protein antigenicity, and nucleic acids.

Sample preservation with SHIELD for tissue clearing and 3D histology

Recent advances in the tissue clearing field have unlocked the visualization of biology throughout whole organs. Tissue processing methods that render samples optically transparent can be combined with methods that enable the tissue-wide penetration of molecular probes such as antibodies. However, many of these techniques – which can include dehydration, delipidation, high temperature exposure, and… Continue reading Sample preservation with SHIELD for tissue clearing and 3D histology

Tissue processing in the 21st century

Figure 2: LifeCanvas' 21st century tissue-processing pipeline replaces traditional histology workflows, which involve a multitude of distinct steps and pieces of equipment (Figure 1), with a streamlined approach comprised of just 5 easy steps involving 3 turn-key devices and 2 simple solution kits.

Breathtaking progress in life sciences has brought us innovations such as high-throughput and individually-affordable genomic sequencing as well as next-generation flow cytometry that can phenotype dissociated cells for their expression of dozens of markers simultaneously. The development of cutting-edge technology solutions with standardized workflows has led to increased efficiency and reliability for these and other… Continue reading Tissue processing in the 21st century