Skip to main page content
U.S. flag

An official website of the United States government

Dot gov

The .gov means it’s official.
Federal government websites often end in .gov or .mil. Before sharing sensitive information, make sure you’re on a federal government site.

Https

The site is secure.
The https:// ensures that you are connecting to the official website and that any information you provide is encrypted and transmitted securely.

Access keys NCBI Homepage MyNCBI Homepage Main Content Main Navigation
. 2012 Winter;18(1):73-6.
doi: 10.1310/sci1801-73.

The Utility of 3D Ultramicroscopy for Evaluating Cellular Therapies After Spinal Cord Injury

M Ghosh  1 , N Jährling, M C Henao, H-U Dodt, D D Pearse
Affiliations

The Utility of 3D Ultramicroscopy for Evaluating Cellular Therapies After Spinal Cord Injury

M Ghosh et al. Top Spinal Cord Inj Rehabil. 2012 Winter.

Abstract

Cell therapies have shown promise for repairing the injured spinal cord in experimental models and are now being evaluated in clinical trials for the treatment of human spinal cord injury (SCI). To date, experimental evaluation of implanted cell survival, migration, and integration within the injured central nervous system (CNS) of animals has been technically demanding, requiring tissue sectioning, staining, imaging, and manual reconstruction of 2-dimensional (2D) specimens in 3 dimensions (3D). Not only are these histological procedures laborious and fraught with processing artifacts during manual 3D reconstruction, but they are time-intensive. Herein we describe the utility of 3D ultramicroscopy for assessment of cell therapies after SCI, a new state-of-the-art imaging modality in which whole brain and spinal cord samples are optically sectioned to allow evaluation of intact, macroscopic specimens with microscopic resolution.

Keywords: 3D ultramicroscopy; Schwann cells; cell therapy; spinal cord injury.

PubMed Disclaimer

References

    1. Pearse DD, Barakat DJ.Cellular repair strategies for spinal cord injury. Expert Opin Biol Ther. 2006;6(7): 639–652 - PubMed
    1. Pearse DD, Bunge MB.Designing cell- and gene based regeneration strategies to repair the injured spinal cord. J Neurotrauma. 2006;23(3-4):438–452 - PubMed
    1. Bunge MB, Pearse DD.Transplantation strategies to promote repair of the injured spinal cord. J Rehabil Res Dev. 2003;40: 55–62 - PubMed
    1. Liu Y, Murray M, Tessler A, Fischer I.Grafting of genetically modified fibroblasts into the injured spinal cord. Prog Brain Res. 2000;128: 309–319 - PubMed
    1. Himes BT, Neuhuber B, Coleman C, et al. Recovery of function following grafting of human bone marrowderived stromal cells into the injured spinal cord. Neurorehabil Neural Repair. 2006;20(2): 278–296 - PubMed