Scientific article
English

Application of photoconversion technique for correlated confocal and ultrastructural studies in organotypic slice cultures

Published inMicroscopy research and technique, vol. 68, no. 2, p. 90-96
Publication date2005
Abstract

Photoconversion of fluorescent staining into stable diaminobenzidine (DAB) precipitate is widely used for neuroanatomical and developmental studies. An important advantage of the approach is to make correlations between light and electron microscopy analyses possible, the DAB reaction product formed during photoconversion being electron dense. By combining a photoconversion approach with biolistic transfection of neurons in organotypic hippocampal slice cultures, we describe here a methodology that allowed us to study at the electron microscopy level the fine details of cells expressing specific genes of interest. The same approach has also been used to analyze the ultrastructural characteristics of specific cells such as neurons recorded with patch clamp techniques. This approach revealed particularly useful for studies of dendritic arborisation, dendritic spines, and axon varicosities of identified cells, as precise morphometric parameters of these structures can only be obtained by electron microscopy. The techniques used for fluorescent staining and photoconversion of these different cell structures and the results obtained by electron microscopic analyses are described.

Keywords
  • Animals
  • Fluorescent Dyes/diagnostic use
  • Hippocampus/physiology/ ultrastructure
  • Microscopy, Electron/ methods
  • Rats
  • Staining and Labeling/methods
Citation (ISO format)
NIKONENKO, Irina et al. Application of photoconversion technique for correlated confocal and ultrastructural studies in organotypic slice cultures. In: Microscopy research and technique, 2005, vol. 68, n° 2, p. 90–96. doi: 10.1002/jemt.20239
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Journal ISSN1059-910X
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