A quantitative study of the preparation of rabbit aortic endothelial cells for scanning electron microscopy

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Abstract
Quantitative studies were done with the scanning electron microscope (SEM) on aortic endothelial cells from 10 rabbits. Of these, 5 were plastic casts and 5 were dehydrated with 3 different, but standard, techniques. All forms of dehydration evidently caused significant shrinkage artefacts and these were different in different directions in the thoracic and abdominal aorta. The greatest shrinkage was found with the critical point drying technique, 45% in the abdominal aorta and 31% in the thoracic aorta. In the abdominal aorta this shrinkage was mainly due to a shrinkage in length (36%) rather than a shrinkage in width (15%). In comparison, in the thoracic aorta critical point drying resulted in a 15% shrinkage in length and a 19% shrinkage in width. Air drying and alcohol dehydration caused considerable shrinkage: 29% and 18%, respectively, in the thoracic aorta, 29% and 36%, respectively, in the abdominal aorta. Directional differences were also found with these techniques; for instance, alcohol dehydration in the thoracic aorta resulted in 0% shrinkage in length and 18% shrinkage in width.