High-Resolution Imaging of Bone Cell Interactions Using the FLUOVIEW FV3000 Confocal Microscope and an X Line 40X Oil Immersion Objective
David Pe?a
Making the world safer and healthier through pioneering innovations on light microscopy. Seeing is Solving.
Bone constantly remodels using a balance of osteoclastic bone resorption and osteoblastic bone formation. However, certain health factors can cause an imbalance, leading to brittle bone in bone diseases such as osteoporosis. To understand the mechanism of bone remodeling, it is important to observe the interactions between osteoclasts and osteoblasts.
In this study, we prepared a mouse tibial cross-section (Figure 1) and closely observed osteoclasts and osteoblasts in the boundary zone between bone marrow and cortical bone. This application typically requires using a low-magnification objective to capture a wide field of view in order to identify a region of interest, followed by using a high-magnification oil immersion objective to observe the details in higher resolution. However, this approach can be difficult since you may lose the region of interest while switching objectives.
Here, we found the region of interest in a wide field of view and observed the fine structures in high-resolution using only a 40X oil immersion objective without switching objectives.
Figure 1: Tibial cross-section
High-Resolution Imaging of Bone Cell Interactions Using an X Line 40X Oil Immersion Objective (UPLXAPO40XO)
We observed the boundary zone between the bone marrow and cortical bone in a mouse tibial cross-section, as well as the contact site (* in Figure 2a) of osteoblasts (green) with vascular endothelial cells (yellow), and the interaction site (# in Figure 2a) of osteoblasts with osteoclasts (red). The wide field of view of the 40X oil objective enabled us to acquire an image that shows where the high-magnification image is located on the overview image (Inset of Figure 2a).
Using scan zoom, we could closely observe the interaction site of osteoblasts with osteoclasts (Figure 2b). The image quality obtained using the X Line UPLXAPO40XO objective was almost the same as the one obtained using a UPLSAPO60XO conventional objective (Figure 2c).
Learn more: https://www.olympus-lifescience.com/en/applications/bone-cell-interactions/