Practical histological methods for use with cultured cells

Abstract

The histology laboratory can face many challenges when small, often critical, specimens of cultured cells are submitted for specialized immunocytochemical studies or special stains. Although clinical pathology labs often receive cell preparations, these usually contain enough cells so that pellets can be formed by centrifugation, and the pellets directly embedded and sectioned. Research labs, however, often need to submit very small samples of cells for experimental studies. We summarize here a number of techniques that currently are available and methods we have developed and/or adapted and used in our laboratory over the years. We describe the utility of multi-chambered slides for cell culture and histologic studies, multi-well cell culture plates, monolayer cell culture on specialized coated cell wells, cell well inserts, and agarose embedding techniques for small cultures of cells and for cultures that require antigen retrieval or multiple antibody localizations. Traditional double embedding techniques, such as the use of agar, are also cited.

Key words::

• cell processing
• histology
• tissue culture

Acknowledgment

We thank the Carolinas Back Pain Research Endowment for general laboratory support.

Declaration of interest: The authors report no conflicts of interest. The authors alone are responsible for the content and writing of the paper.