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Heart

The heart is a vital organ that pumps blood throughout the body, supplying oxygen and nutrients to all organs and tissues. It is essential for maintaining normal bodily function and survival. Tissue sections are needed to study the heart as they provide a thin and flat sample that can be easily sliced and observed under a microscope. This allows researchers to investigate the cellular and molecular mechanisms underlying various heart functions, such as cardiac contraction, electrophysiology, and metabolism, and to identify changes that occur in heart diseases and disorders, such as heart failure, arrhythmias, and coronary artery disease.

Advantages of the Compresstome®

Smooth sections: tissue stabilization = No artifacts
No squishing: the agarose fills in the air space, preventing squishing.
Minimal tissue damage: Tissue stabilization preserves cellular level structural integrity and details.

Problems with traditional vibrating microtomes

Variability in tissue density: The heart is composed of multiple cell types with different densities, which can make it challenging to produce uniform sections. The dense regions of the heart may cause the vibratome blade to skip or produce uneven section thickness.
Variability in tissue texture: The texture of heart tissue can vary depending on the region of the heart being examined, which can affect the quality of the sections produced. For example, the myocardium is more fibrous and dense than other regions of the heart, which can make it more difficult to obtain high-quality sections.
Presence of delicate structures: The heart contains several delicate structures, such as the valves and blood vessels, that can be easily damaged during sectioning. The vibratome blade may tear or crumple these structures, leading to unusable or distorted sections.
Presence of air spaces: The heart contains air spaces that can cause the tissue to collapse or become distorted during sectioning. This can make it difficult to obtain sections that are representative of the tissue structure.

Recommended Models

VF-510-0Z

Compresstome vibrating microtome

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Real lab examples

Compresstome® for sectioning live myocardial slices for cardiac research

The Smyth Laboratory, led by James Smyth, Ph.D., studies cardiomyopathy at a subcellular level, searching for potential targets for therapeutic interventions to help restore normal cardiac function to diseased hearts. Here, Dr. Smyth shows how to section live myocardial slices with the Compresstome®, and uses them for tissue culture and calcium imaging.

References

Bose SK, White BM, Kashyap MV, Dave A, De Bie FR, Li H, Singh K, Menon P,Wang T, Teerdhala S, Swaminathan V, Hartman HA, Jayachandran S, Chandrasekaran P, Musunuru K, Jain R, Frank DB, Zoltick P, Peranteau WH. In utero adenine base editing corrects multi-organ pathology in a lethal lysosomal storage disease. Nat Commun. 2021 Jul 13;12(1):4291. PMID: 34257302; PMCID: PMC8277817. Download PDF

Li Z, Solomonidis EG, Berkeley B, Tang MNH, Stewart KR, Perez-Vicencio D, McCracken IR, Spiroski AM, Gray GA, Barton AK, Sellers SL, Riley PR, Baker AH, Brittan M. Multi-species meta-analysis identifies transcriptional signatures associated with cardiac endothelial responses in the ischaemic heart. Cardiovasc Res. 2023 Mar 17;119(1):136-154. PMID: 36082978; PMCID: PMC10022865. Download PDF

Wen Q, Gandhi K, Capel RA, Hao G, O’Shea C, Neagu G, Pearcey S, Pavlovic D, Terrar DA, Wu J, Faggian G, Camelliti P, Lei M. Transverse cardiac slicing and optical imaging for analysis of transmural gradients in membrane potential and Ca<sup>2+</sup> transients in murine heart. J Physiol. 2018 Sep;596(17):3951-3965. Epub 2018 Jul 26. PMID: 29928770; PMCID: PMC6117587. Download PDF

Full references list

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