SHIELD

Tissue Preservation - Highlighted pipeline icon

Exceptional tissue preservation

Published by Park et al. in Nature Biotechnology 2018, our SHIELD reagent (AKA GE38) safeguards endogenous fluorescence, protein antigenicity, nucleic acids, and overall tissue architecture against physical and chemical stressors. The SHIELD tissue preservation method also protects tissue during fluorescent protein imaging and antibody labeling across multiple rounds.

Compatible with:

GFP+ motor cortical neurons in whole mouse brain (left) and tdTomato+ in a mouse spinal cord cell-type (right)
Left: GFP+ motor cortical neurons, sample courtesy of Dr. Byungkook Lim, UCSD. Right: RFP+ spinal cord cells, sample courtesy of Dr. Helen Lai, UT Southwestern. Both imaged with SmartSPIM.

Quick & easy tissue preservation protocol

Our streamlined protocol takes just 4-6 days, without the variability of tissue embedding via hydrogel or paraffin. Reagents are non-toxic and can be easily disposed of after use.

Figure showing SHIELD tissue preservation mechanism

Two SHIELD kit sizes

250 mL: Preserves 25 whole mouse brains or comparably sized samples.

  • 250 mL SH-Epoxy
  • 125 mL SH-Buffer
  • 500 mL SH-ON

500 mL: Preserves 50 whole mouse brains or comparably sized samples.

  • 500 mL SH-Epoxy
  • 250 mL SH-Buffer
  • 1000 mL SH-ON
SHIELD reagent bottles

Recent publications citing SHIELD

Loss of insulin signaling in astrocytes exacerbates Alzheimer-like phenotypes in a 5xFAD mouse model

Wenqiang Chen, Qian Huang, Ekaterina Katie Lazdon, Antonio Gomes, Marisa Wong, Emily Stephens, Tabitha Grace Royal, Dan Frenkel, Weikang Cai, C. Ronald Kahn

Journal:
PNAS
Publication Date:
Research Area:
Neurodegeneration, Metabolism
Tissue Species:
Mouse
Tissue Type:
Brain
Products Cited:
SHIELD, EasyIndex, Passive Clearing Kit, SmartSPIM, SmartAnalytics, CRO Services
Rapid and precise genome engineering in a naturally short-lived vertebrate

Claire N. Bedbrook, Ravi D. Nath, Rahul Nagvekar, Karl Deisseroth, Anne Brunet

Journal:
eLife
Publication Date:
Research Area:
Methods
Tissue Species:
Killifish
Tissue Type:
Brain, Whole Body, Spinal Cord/Other Neuro
Products Cited:
SHIELD, EasyIndex
Leveraging the Power of 3D Brain-Wide Imaging and Mapping Tools for Brain Injury Research in Murine Models

Mehwish Anwer, Jeffrey LeDue, Zefang Wang, Sarah Wang, Wai Hang Cheng, Mariia Burdyniuk, Honor Cheung, Jianjia Fan, Carlos Barron, Peter A. Cripton, Mark S. Cembrowski, Fabio Rossi, Timothy H. Murphy, Cheryl L. Wellington

Journal:
bioRxiv
Publication Date:
Research Area:
Brain Injury, Methods
Tissue Species:
Mouse
Tissue Type:
Brain
Products Cited:
SHIELD, EasyIndex, SmartBatch+, SmartSPIM, SmartAnalytics, CRO Services

Further reading

Tissue processing in the 21st century

Immunohistochemistry methods are laborious, error-prone, and expensive – intact tissue processing technologies resolve many of these issues.