JoVE Logo

Sign In

A subscription to JoVE is required to view this content. Sign in or start your free trial.

Abstract

Biology

Visualization of 3D White Adipose Tissue Structure Using Whole-mount Staining

Published: November 17th, 2018

DOI:

10.3791/58683

1Translational Medicine Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, 2Department of Laboratory Medicine and Pathobiology, University of Toronto, 3Neurosciences & Mental Health Program, The Hospital for Sick Children, 4Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Smart-Aging Convergence Research Center, College of Medicine, Yeungnam University, 5Banting and Best Diabetes Centre, University of Toronto

* These authors contributed equally

Abstract

Adipose tissue is an important metabolic organ with high plasticity and is responsive to environmental stimuli and nutrient status. As such, various techniques have been developed to study the morphology and biology of adipose tissue. However, conventional visualization methods are limited to studying the tissue in 2D sections, failing to capture the 3D architecture of the whole organ. Here we present whole-mount staining, an immunohistochemistry method that preserves intact adipose tissue morphology with minimal processing steps. Hence, the structures of adipocytes and other cellular components are maintained without distortion, achieving the most representative 3D visualization of the tissue. In addition, whole-mount staining can be combined with lineage tracing methods to determine cell fate decisions. However, this technique has some limitations to providing accurate information regarding deeper parts of adipose tissue. To overcome this limitation, whole-mount staining can be further combined with tissue clearing techniques to remove the opaqueness of tissue and allow for complete visualization of entire adipose tissue anatomy using light-sheet fluorescent microscopy. Therefore, a higher resolution and more accurate representation of adipose tissue structures can be captured with the combination of these techniques.

Explore More Videos

Keywords 3D Visualization

This article has been published

Video Coming Soon

JoVE Logo

Privacy

Terms of Use

Policies

Research

Education

ABOUT JoVE

Copyright © 2024 MyJoVE Corporation. All rights reserved