Whole-mount immunohistochemistry of the brain.

The gross anatomical distribution of an antigen is typically mapped using a combination of serial sectioning, immunocytochemistry, and three-dimensional reconstruction. This is a tedious and time-consuming procedure, which introduces an array of potential alignment and differential shrinkage errors and requires considerable experience and specialized equipment. In particular, it is unsuited for routine screening applications.

Antigenic compartmentation of the cerebellar cortex in the syrian hamster Mesocricetus auratus.

Despite the apparent uniformity in cellular composition of the adult cerebellar cortex, a complex heterogeneous pattern can be revealed by using biochemical markers. One example is zebrin II/aldolase C, which is expressed by a subset of Purkinje cells that form a highly reproducible array of stripes. Zebrin II/aldolase C immunohistochemistry has been used in both section and whole mount preparations to analyze the architecture of the hamster cerebellar cortex.