Some quantitative applications of vascular corrosion casting

Author(s):  
Fred E. Hossler

Preparation of replicas of the complex arrangement of blood vessels in various organs and tissues has been accomplished by infusing low viscosity resins into the vasculature. Subsequent removal of the surrounding tissue by maceration leaves a model of the intricate three-dimensional anatomy of the blood vessels of the tissue not obtainable by any other procedure. When applied with care, the vascular corrosion casting technique can reveal fine details of the microvasculature including endothelial nuclear orientation and distribution (Fig. 1), locations of arteriolar sphincters (Fig. 2), venous valve anatomy (Fig. 3), and vessel size, density, and branching patterns. Because casts faithfully replicate tissue vasculature, they can be used for quantitative measurements of that vasculature. The purpose of this report is to summarize and highlight some quantitative applications of vascular corrosion casting. In each example, casts were prepared by infusing Mercox, a methyl-methacrylate resin, and macerating the tissue with 20% KOH. Casts were either mounted for conventional scanning electron microscopy, or sliced for viewing with a confocal laser microscope.

1998 ◽  
Vol 6 (7) ◽  
pp. 14-15 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fred E. Hossler

Complete casts of the vasculature of organs and tissues are obtained by infusing low viscosity resins into the vasculature and allowing the resin to polymerize. Dissolving away the surrounding tissue with alkali leaves a model of the intricate, three-dimensional distribution of vessels in that tissue, which is not easily obtainable by any other means, and which can then be studied with scanning electron microscopy (SEM), Because well prepared casts appear to faithfully replicate the true vascular anatomy of organs including the dimensions of vessels and details of imprints of the endothelial cells lining their lumens, they must also contain quantitative information about that vasculature.


Author(s):  
Zhong-Shan Deng ◽  
Jing Liu

As is well known, the blood flowing through large blood vessels acts as a heat sink and plays an important role in affecting temperature profiles of heated tissues [1]. In hyperthermia, heating is usually limited to the tumor and a small margin of the surrounding tissue. Since the temperatures in the rest of the body remain normal, the blood that supplies the tumor will be relatively cold. Consequently, the blood flow inside a large vessel will represent a sink which cools the nearby heated tissues and then limits heating lesion during tumor hyperthermia. Under this adverse condition, a part of vital tumor cells may remain in the thermally lethal area and lead to recurrence of tumors after hyperthermia treatment. More specifically, tumor cell survival in the vicinity of large blood vessels is often correlated with tumor recurrence after thermal therapy. Therefore, it is difficult to implement an effective hyperthermia treatment when a tumor is contiguous to a large blood vessel or such vessel transits the tumor. How to totally destroy tumor cells in the vicinity of large blood vessels has been a major challenge in hyperthermia [2].


1998 ◽  
Vol 4 (S2) ◽  
pp. 912-913
Author(s):  
K.R. Olson

Vascular corrosion replicas provide unique three-dimensional models of both macro- and microcirculatory angio-architecture. In most replication procedures, blood is initially flushed from the vasculature with a low viscosity, noclotting medium, such as saline, prior to infusion with the unpolymerized resin. While this removes cellular elements from the vessels and also prevents coagulation, the chemical characteristics of the saline and the mode in which it is infused can affect the vasculature. This can be disadvantageous if subsequent distribution of the resin does not faithfully mimic normal perfusion pathways, or if the vascular lumen is either narrowed due to vasospasm or distended due to excessive intravascular pressure. Alternatively, the composition of the saline can be modified to enhance the replication process. This may be done merely to ensure complete filling of the vasculature or to evaluate anatomical foci instrumental in physiological and pharmacological regulation of perfusion distribution.


1999 ◽  
Vol 5 (S2) ◽  
pp. 1190-1191
Author(s):  
K.R. Olson

Vascular corrosion replicas provide unique three-dimensional models of both macro- and microcirculatory angio-architecture. In most replication procedures, blood is initially flushed from the vasculature with a low viscosity, non-clotting medium, such as saline, prior to infusion with the unpolymerized resin. While this removes cellular elements from the vessels and prevents coagulation, the chemical characteristics of the saline and the mode in which it is infused can potentially affect vascular smooth muscle. This can be disadvantageous if subsequent distribution of the resin does not faithfully mimic normal perfusion pathways, or if the vascular lumen is either narrowed due to vasospasm or distended due to excessive intravascular pressure. Alternatively, the composition of the saline can be modified to enhance the replication process. This may be done merely to ensure complete filling of the vasculature or to evaluate anatomical foci instrumental in physiological and pharmacological regulation of perfusion distribution.


Author(s):  
J.N. Turner ◽  
M. Siemens ◽  
D. Szarowski ◽  
D.N. Collins

A classic preparation of central nervous system tissue (CNS) is the Golgi procedure popularized by Cajal. The method is partially specific as only a few cells are impregnated with silver chromate usualy after osmium post fixation. Samples are observable by light (LM) or electron microscopy (EM). However, the impregnation is often so dense that structures are masked in EM, and the osmium background may be undesirable in LM. Gold toning is used for a subtle but high contrast EM preparation, and osmium can be omitted for LM. We are investigating these preparations as part of a study to develop correlative LM and EM (particularly HVEM) methodologies in neurobiology. Confocal light microscopy is particularly useful as the impregnated cells have extensive three-dimensional structure in tissue samples from one to several hundred micrometers thick. Boyde has observed similar preparations in the tandem scanning reflected light microscope (TSRLM).


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Debayan Dasgupta ◽  
Dharma Pally ◽  
Deepak K. Saini ◽  
Ramray Bhat ◽  
Ambarish Ghosh

The dissemination of cancer is brought about by continuous interaction of malignant cells with their surrounding tissue microenvironment. Understanding and quantifying the remodeling of local extracellular matrix (ECM) by invading cells can therefore provide fundamental insights into the dynamics of cancer dissemination. In this paper, we use an active and untethered nanomechanical tool, realized as magnetically driven nanorobots, to locally probe a 3D tissue culture microenvironment consisting of cancerous and non-cancerous epithelia, embedded within reconstituted basement membrane (rBM) matrix. Our assay is designed to mimic the in vivo histopathological milieu of a malignant breast tumor. We find that nanorobots preferentially adhere to the ECM near cancer cells: this is due to the distinct charge conditions of the cancer-remodeled ECM. Surprisingly, quantitative measurements estimate that the adhesive force increases with the metastatic ability of cancer cell lines, while the spatial extent of the remodeled ECM was measured to be approximately 40 μm for all cancer cell lines studied here. We hypothesized and experimentally confirmed that specific sialic acid linkages specific to cancer-secreted ECM may be a major contributing factor in determining this adhesive behavior. The findings reported here can lead to promising applications in cancer diagnosis, quantification of cancer aggression, in vivo drug delivery applications, and establishes the tremendous potential of magnetic nanorobots for fundamental studies of cancer biomechanics.


2001 ◽  
Vol 199 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 227-228
Author(s):  
M. BREVET ◽  
O. PLAISANT ◽  
C. GILLOT ◽  
P. COSTIOU ◽  
M. D. DIEBOLD

2021 ◽  
pp. 105678952110286
Author(s):  
H Zhang ◽  
J Woody Ju ◽  
WL Zhu ◽  
KY Yuan

In a recent companion paper, a three-dimensional isotropic elastic micromechanical framework was developed to predict the mechanical behaviors of the innovative asphalt patching materials reinforced with a high-toughness, low-viscosity nanomolecular resin, dicyclopentadiene (DCPD), under the splitting tension test (ASTM D6931). By taking advantage of the previously proposed isotropic elastic-damage framework and considering the plastic behaviors of asphalt mastic, a class of elasto-damage-plastic model, based on a continuum thermodynamic framework, is proposed within an initial elastic strain energy-based formulation to predict the behaviors of the innovative materials more accurately. Specifically, the governing damage evolution is characterized through the effective stress concept in conjunction with the hypothesis of strain equivalence; the plastic flow is introduced by means of an additive split of the stress tensor. Corresponding computational algorithms are implemented into three-dimensional finite elements numerical simulations, and the outcomes are systemically compared with suitably designed experimental results.


2021 ◽  
Vol 11 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Rino Saiga ◽  
Masayuki Uesugi ◽  
Akihisa Takeuchi ◽  
Kentaro Uesugi ◽  
Yoshio Suzuki ◽  
...  

AbstractBrain blood vessels constitute a micrometer-scale vascular network responsible for supply of oxygen and nutrition. In this study, we analyzed cerebral tissues of the anterior cingulate cortex and superior temporal gyrus of schizophrenia cases and age/gender-matched controls by using synchrotron radiation microtomography or micro-CT in order to examine the three-dimensional structure of cerebral vessels. Over 1 m of cerebral blood vessels was traced to build Cartesian-coordinate models, which were then used for calculating structural parameters including the diameter and curvature of the vessels. The distribution of vessel outer diameters showed a peak at 7–9 μm, corresponding to the diameter of the capillaries. Mean curvatures of the capillary vessels showed a significant correlation to the mean curvatures of neurites, while the mean capillary diameter was almost constant, independent of the cases. Our previous studies indicated that the neurites of schizophrenia cases are thin and tortuous compared to controls. The curved capillaries with a constant diameter should occupy a nearly constant volume, while neurons suffering from neurite thinning should have reduced volumes, resulting in a volumetric imbalance between the neurons and the vessels. We suggest that the observed structural correlation between neurons and blood vessels is related to neurovascular abnormalities in schizophrenia.


1994 ◽  
Vol 42 (5) ◽  
pp. 681-686 ◽  
Author(s):  
V Rummelt ◽  
L M Gardner ◽  
R Folberg ◽  
S Beck ◽  
B Knosp ◽  
...  

The morphology of the microcirculation of uveal melanomas is a reliable market of tumor progression. Scanning electron microscopy of cast corrosion preparations can generate three-dimensional views of these vascular patterns, but this technique sacrifices the tumor parenchyma. Formalin-fixed wet tissue sections 100-150 microns thick from uveal melanomas were stained with the lectin Ulex europaeus agglutinin I (UEAI) and proliferating cell nuclear antigen (PCNA) to demonstrate simultaneously the tumor blood vessels and proliferating tumor cells. Indocarbocyanine (Cy3) was used as a fluorophore for UEAI and indodicarbocyanine (Cy5) was used for PCNA. Double labeled sections were examined with a laser scanning confocal microscope. Images of both stains were digitized at the same 5-microns intervals and each of the two images per interval was combined digitally to form one image. These combined images were visualized through voxel processing to study the relationship between melanoma cells expressing PCNA and various microcirculatory patterns. This technique produces images comparable to scanning electron microscopy of cast corrosion preparations while permitting simultaneous localization of melanoma cells expressing PCNA. The microcirculatory tree can be viewed from any perspective and the relationship between tumor cells and the tumor blood vessels can be studied concurrently in three dimensions. This technique is an alternative to cast corrosion preparations.


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