Quantitative comparison of myocardial fiber structure between mice, rabbit, and sheep using diffusion tensor cardiovascular magnetic resonance.

Background: Accurate interpretations of cardiac functions require precise structural models of the myocardium, but the latter is not available always and for all species. Although scaling or substitution of myocardial fiber information from alternate species has been used in cardiac functional modeling, the validity of such practice has not been tested.

Methods: Fixed mouse (n = 10), rabbit (n = 6), and sheep (n = 5) hearts underwent diffusion tensor imaging (DTI).

Virtual histology of transgenic mouse embryos for high-throughput phenotyping.

A bold new effort to disrupt every gene in the mouse genome necessitates systematic, interdisciplinary approaches to analyzing patterning defects in the mouse embryo. We present a novel, rapid, and inexpensive method for obtaining high-resolution virtual histology for phenotypic assessment of mouse embryos. Using osmium tetroxide to differentially stain tissues followed by volumetric X-ray computed tomography to image whole embryos, isometric resolutions of 27 mum or 8 mum were achieved with scan times of 2 h or 12 h, respectively, using mid-gestation E9.