Correlating immunohistochemistry with serial block-face electron microscopy of neurons
In Talapka et al 2022, "Application of the mirror technique for block-face scanning electron microscopy", the authors use a modified "mirror" technique to combine immunohistochemistry for labeling of dendrites and ultrastructural analysis in 3D-EM of osmicated sections. This relies on the finding that the surface of a tissue block can still be imaged using confocal microscopy. The authors show that the cell body of a somatostatin immunopositive neuron and one of the emerging dendrites can be clearly visualized and reconstructed after the use of their technique. It is likely that the dendritic arbor of a large number of neurons can be analyzed using this technique. The technique combines the advantages of a high-resolution approach and of a labeling method for specific cellular markers. The morphological preservation of the structures seen on the surfaces of tissue sections such as blood vessels will in part determine the quality of the images. Here is one of the figures from their paper:
