Development of a New Tool for 3D Modeling for Regenerative Medicine.

ABSTRACT: The effectiveness of therapeutic treatment based on regenerative medicine for degenerative diseases (i.e., neurodegenerative or cardiac diseases) requires tools allowing the visualization and analysis of the three-dimensional (3D) distribution of target drugs within the tissue. Here, we present a new computational procedure able to overcome the limitations of visual analysis emerging by the examination of a molecular signal within images of serial tissue/organ sections by using the conventional techniques. Together with the 3D anatomical reconstitution of the tissue/organ, our framework allows the detection of signals of different origins (e.g., marked generic molecules, colorimetric, or fluorimetric substrates for enzymes; microRNA; recombinant protein). Remarkably, the application does not require the employment of specific tracking reagents for the imaging analysis. We report two different representative applications: the first shows the reconstruction of a 3D model of mouse brain with the analysis of the distribution of the ?-Galactosidase, the second shows the reconstruction of a 3D mouse heart with the measurement of the cardiac volume.

SUBMITTER: Mattoli F 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3132439 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature