Biopsychronology: A method using live tissue staining to image cell function in the kidney

Abstract

Methods to monitor the status of a graft prior to transplantation are highly desirable to avoid unnecessary surgical interventions and follow-up treatments and to optimize the clinical outcome as delayed graft function may lead to costly and lengthy follow-up treatments or even organ loss. As a promising step in this direction we present a method which combines the use of fine needle biopsies, the staining of living cells with dyes suitable to monitor mitochondrial status/cellular integrity, and live confocal real-time analysis. This approach provides information about the functional and structural intactness of an organ within a few minutes. To confirm the feasibility of this approach, we recently published a pilot study using rodent kidneys. The results demonstrated that this method is suitable to monitor organ damage caused by isch­emia or short periods of reperfusion. This procedure required minimal time for sample preparation and data acquisition and is suitable for recording damage resulting from unphysiological stress to the organ.