Knife-Edge Scanning Microscopy for Bright-Field Multi-Cubic Centimeter Analysis of Microvasculature

Abstract

Serial section microscopy has proven to be a powerful tool in examining the 3-dimensional nature of tissue; however, it is limited by the size of tissue samples that can be used and the manual process of acquiring data. The Knife-Edge Scanning Microscope (KESM) acquisition and analysis computational system resolves these issues by providing high resolution light microscopy image data at multi-cubic centimeter scale. Using this system for quantification of microvasculature provides the ability to examine, measure, and compare the 3- dimensional nature of vascular networks at whole organ scale and sub-micron resolution.