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Application of the fractionator and vertical slices to estimate total capillary length in skeletal muscle
Author(s) -
ARTACHOPÉRULA EMILIO,
ROLDÁNVILLALOBOS RAFAEL,
CRUZORIVE LUIS M.
Publication year - 1999
Publication title -
journal of anatomy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.932
H-Index - 118
eISSN - 1469-7580
pISSN - 0021-8782
DOI - 10.1046/j.1469-7580.1999.19530429.x
Subject(s) - sampling (signal processing) , capillary action , skeletal muscle , intersection (aeronautics) , biomedical engineering , anatomy , stereology , perfusion , mathematics , computer science , materials science , biology , computer vision , engineering , medicine , filter (signal processing) , endocrinology , composite material , aerospace engineering , cardiology
A new stereological method is proposed which combines vertical slice projections with the fractionator to estimate the total capillary length in a skeletal muscle. The method was demonstrated on the soleus muscle of a Wistar rat. The implementation required capillary highlighting, tissue sampling, and data acquisition in the form of intersection counts between capillary projections and cycloid test lines. The capillaries were demonstrated using vascular perfusion (with gelatine) of the hind leg of the rat. The sampling procedure followed the fractionator design, namely a multistage systematic sampling design with a known sampling fraction at each stage. To make the design unbiased, vertical slices were used; for efficiency, the vertical axis was chosen parallel to the main axis of the muscle. As prescribed to avoid bias, the cycloid test lines were superimposed on the slice projections, viewed under the light microscope, with their minor axes normal to the vertical axis. The estimation precision was compared for different sampling and subsampling fractions. The proposed method was globally highly efficient, unbiased, and easy to implement.