Whole-mount immunostaining methods to study the blood and lymphatic vasculature in the embryonic mouse skin and adult mouse cornea

Abstract

In order to study the lymphatic/blood vascular system, in mouse adult/embryonic tissues we often make use of histological sections. Although immunostaining of histologic sections does give an idea of the underlying vasculature, one of the shortcomings of these methods includes lack of possibilities of studying the vessel branching patterns. The whole mount staining of various mouse tissues provides an opportunity to study the entire vasculature including whole vessel width, vascular morphogenesis, and valve formations. Additionally data quantification of lymphatic/blood vasculature is often most accurate with whole mount immunostaining. In this chapter we present simple techniques for staining whole mount mouse embryonic dorsal skins (DS) and adult mouse corneal tissues for visualization of lymphatic and blood vasculature for research purposes.