Optical Projection Tomography - an improved technique to view tissues and gene expression in 3D.

 

Samples scanned can either be paraformaldehyde fixed specimens where changes in morphology are to be examined or antibody/insitu treated specimens with either fluorescent or colourmetric secondaries to visualise specific, and non specific, labelling in 3D. One advantage of doing this is seeing if that signal is only on the surface or spreads through the specimen but there are many more applications.

 

Scans can also be done on live specimens, zebrafish, to show growth or GFP expression in a developing model.

 

One advantage of being able to digitally section a specimen, over histological wax sectioning, is that it can repeated again and again from a variety of angles whereas histologically it can only be performed once.

 

Further scanned sample examples can be viewed here.

For further information please contact: Harris Morrison

 

Sample coutesy of Eve Anderson

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Optical Projection Tomography (OPT)

Optical Projection Tomography (OPT) is a new technique for three-dimensional (3D) imaging of small, about 1mm up to around 25mm, biological tissues. It is particularly useful for reconstructing vertebrate embryos and for examining the 3D anatomy of developing organs. Other models scanned include chick, zebrafish and human biopsy at various developmental stages.

The advantages of this technique, over previous methods, will be explained: in particular, its ability to image at a higher resolution than magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), while at the same time being able to image specimens much larger than those possible using confocal laser-scanning microscopy. The 3D datasets which result from scanning can be used for digital sectioning

Sample courtesy of Eve Anderson

and 3D rendering for use both in presentations or for analytical analysis using both proprietary and commercially available software.