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Superficial Nephrons in BALB/c Mice Facilitate in vivo Multiphoton Imaging
Author(s) -
Schießl Ina,
Castrop Hayo
Publication year - 2012
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.26.1_supplement.679.4
Subject(s) - in vivo , kidney , pathology , strain (injury) , balb/c , renal function , chemistry , biology , microbiology and biotechnology , anatomy , endocrinology , medicine , immunology , genetics , immune system
Renal glomerular structure and function can be evaluated in vivo by the use of multiphoton microscopy (MM). The method however is limited by the tissue penetration depth of the excitation laser, which is in the range of 130 μm for the kidney. In view of the relevance of gene‐targeted mice for MM studies, we aimed to identify a mouse strain with a high percentage of superficial glomeruli. The average depth of (i) the most superficial glomeruli per animal and of (ii) all glomeruli within 200 μm from the kidney surface was determined in commonly used mouse strains. The depth of the 30 most superficial glomeruli per animal averaged 190±5, 128±4, 165±5, 136±7, 212±5, 117±2, 116±5, 109±3, 149±4, and 148±5 μm in kidney sections from 4‐week‐old 129/Sv, C57BL/6N, CB6F1, C3H/HeN, NMRI, SJL, DBA/2N, BALB/c, FVB, and CD‐1 mice, respectively (3 animals; p<.0001 for BALB/c vs. average of all strains). BALB/c and DBA/2N were the only strains with a 25% percentile below 100 μm (p<.0001 vs. average of all strains). A similar ranking was obtained when all glomeruli within 200 μm from the kidney surface were analyzed. In 10‐week‐old mice, the average of the 30 most superficial glomeruli was located deeper in the cortex, with BALB/c being the only strain with a 25% percentile below 115 μm. In summary, due to many superficial glomeruli, the BALB/c strain appears to be particularly suitable for the investigation of glomerular function using MM.