Multiscale cardiac imaging spanning the whole heart and its internal cellular architecture in a small animal model
- Oregon Health and Science University, United States
Abstract
Cardiac pumping depends on the morphological structure of the heart, but also on its sub-cellular (ultrastructural) architecture, which enables cardiac contraction. In cases of congenital heart defects, localized ultrastructural disruptions that increase the risk of heart failure are only starting to be discovered. This is in part due to a lack of technologies that can image the three dimensional (3D) heart structure, to assess malformations; and its ultrastructure, to assess organelle disruptions. We present here a multiscale, correlative imaging procedure that achieves high-resolution images of the whole heart, using 3D micro-computed tomography (micro-CT); and its ultrastructure, using 3D scanning electron microscopy (SEM). In a small animal model (chicken embryo), we achieved uniform fixation and staining of the whole heart, without losing ultrastructural preservation on the same sample, enabling correlative multiscale imaging. Our approach enables multiscale studies in models of congenital heart disease and beyond.
Data availability
Data generated and analysed during this study are described in the manuscript. Source data files have been provided for Figures 8 and 10. Datasets have been submitted to Dryad with DOI https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.hdr7sqvg5.
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Multiscale Heart Image DataDryad Digital Repository, doi:10.5061/dryad.hdr7sqvg5.
Article and author information
Author details
Jessica L Riesterer
Funding
National Institutes of Health (R01 HL094570)
- Sandra Rugonyi
OHSU University Shared Resource pilot funding
- Sandra Rugonyi
OHSU School of Medicine Faculty Innovation Fund
- Sandra Rugonyi
The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.
Copyright
© 2020, Rykiel et al.
This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.
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Multiscale cardiac imaging spanning the whole heart and its internal cellular architecture in a small animal model
eLife 9:e58138.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.58138
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