Cell therapies have shown promise for repairing the injured spinal cord in experimental models and are now being evaluated in clinical trials for the treatment of human spinal cord injury (SCI). To date, experimental evaluation of implanted cell survival, migration, and integration within the injured central nervous system (CNS) of animals has been technically demanding, requiring tissue sectioning, staining, imaging, and manual reconstruction of 2-dimensional (2D) specimens in 3 dimensions (3D). Not only are these histological procedures laborious and fraught with processing artifacts during manual 3D reconstruction, but they are time-intensive. Herein we describe the utility of 3D ultramicroscopy for assessment of cell therapies after SCI, a new state-of-the-art imaging modality in which whole brain and spinal cord samples are optically sectioned to allow evaluation of intact, macroscopic specimens with microscopic resolution.
Keywords: 3D ultramicroscopy; Schwann cells; cell therapy; spinal cord injury.