Lutton E Josiah, Lammers Wim J E P, James Sean, van den Berg Hugo A, Blanks Andrew M
Cell and Developmental Biology, Division of Biomedical Sciences Warwick Medical School, Coventry, United Kingdom.
Bioengineering Institute, Auckland University, Auckland, New Zealand.
PLoS One. 2017 Mar 16;12(3):e0173404. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0173404. eCollection 2017.
The fibrous structure of the myometrium has previously been characterised at high resolutions in small tissue samples (< 100 mm3) and at low resolutions (∼500 μm per voxel edge) in whole-organ reconstructions. However, no high-resolution visualisation of the myometrium at the organ level has previously been attained.
We have developed a technique to reconstruct the whole myometrium from serial histological slides, at a resolution of approximately 50 μm per voxel edge. Reconstructions of samples taken from human and rat uteri are presented here, along with histological verification of the reconstructions and detailed investigation of the fibrous structure of these uteri, using a range of tools specifically developed for this analysis. These reconstruction techniques enable the high-resolution rendering of global structure previously observed at lower resolution. Moreover, structures observed previously in small portions of the myometrium can be observed in the context of the whole organ. The reconstructions are in direct correspondence with the original histological slides, which allows the inspection of the anatomical context of any features identified in the three-dimensional reconstructions.
The methods presented here have been used to generate a faithful representation of myometrial smooth muscle at a resolution of ∼50 μm per voxel edge. Characterisation of the smooth muscle structure of the myometrium by means of this technique revealed a detailed view of previously identified global structures in addition to a global view of the microarchitecture. A suite of visualisation tools allows researchers to interrogate the histological microarchitecture. These methods will be applicable to other smooth muscle tissues to analyse fibrous microarchitecture.
子宫肌层的纤维结构此前已在小组织样本（<100立方毫米）中以高分辨率以及在全器官重建中以低分辨率（每个体素边缘约500微米）进行了表征。然而，此前尚未实现子宫肌层在器官水平的高分辨率可视化。
我们开发了一种技术，可从连续组织学切片重建整个子宫肌层，分辨率约为每个体素边缘50微米。本文展示了取自人类和大鼠子宫样本的重建结果，以及重建的组织学验证，并使用专门为此分析开发的一系列工具对这些子宫的纤维结构进行了详细研究。这些重建技术能够对先前在较低分辨率下观察到的整体结构进行高分辨率渲染。此外，先前在子宫肌层小部分中观察到的结构可以在整个器官的背景下观察到。这些重建与原始组织学切片直接对应，这使得能够检查三维重建中识别出的任何特征的解剖背景。
本文介绍的方法已用于以每个体素边缘约50微米的分辨率生成子宫肌层平滑肌的忠实表示。通过该技术对子宫肌层平滑肌结构的表征除了揭示先前确定的整体结构的详细视图外，还展示了微观结构的整体视图。一套可视化工具使研究人员能够探究组织学微观结构。这些方法将适用于其他平滑肌组织以分析纤维微观结构。
