Tianjin Medical University, Tianjin, China.
Center for Medical Device Evaluation NMPA, Beijing, China.
Orthop Surg. 2021 May;13(3):701-707. doi: 10.1111/os.12627. Epub 2021 Mar 10.
Although the structure and composition of collagen have been studied by polarized light microscopy since the early 19th century, many studies and reviews have paid little or no attention to the morphological problems of histopathological diagnosis. The morphology of collagen fibers is critical in guiding mechanical and biological properties in both normal and pathological tendons. Highlighting the organization and spatial distribution of tendon-containing collagen fibers can be very useful for visualizing a tendon's ultrastructure, biochemical and indirect mechanical properties, which benefits other researchers and clinicians. Picrosirius red (PSR) staining, relying on the birefringence of collagen fibers, is one of the best understood histochemical methods that can highly and specifically underline fibers better than other common staining techniques when combined with polarized light microscopy (PLM). Polarized light microscopy provides complementary information about collagen fibers, such as orientation, type and spatial distribution, which is important for a comprehensive assessment of collagen alteration in a tendon. Here, this brief review serves as a simplistic and important primer to research developments in which differential staining of collagen types by the Picrosirius-polarization method is increasing in diverse studies of the medical field, mainly in the assessment of the morphology, spatial distribution, and content of collagen in tendons.
尽管自 19 世纪初以来，偏振光显微镜就已经对胶原蛋白的结构和组成进行了研究，但许多研究和综述几乎没有或根本没有关注组织病理学诊断中的形态学问题。胶原纤维的形态在指导正常和病理肌腱的机械和生物学特性方面至关重要。突出包含胶原蛋白纤维的肌腱的组织和空间分布对于可视化肌腱的超微结构、生化和间接机械性能非常有用，这使其他研究人员和临床医生受益。依赖于胶原蛋白纤维双折射的苦味酸天狼星红（PSR）染色是组织化学方法中理解得最好的方法之一，当与偏振光显微镜（PLM）结合使用时，它比其他常见的染色技术更能高度和特异性地下调纤维。偏振光显微镜提供了有关胶原蛋白纤维的补充信息，例如取向、类型和空间分布，这对于全面评估肌腱中胶原蛋白的变化非常重要。在这里，这篇简要的综述是一个简单而重要的入门介绍，介绍了偏振光下的苦味酸染色法在不同医学领域的研究中对胶原蛋白类型的差异染色的发展情况，主要是在评估肌腱中胶原蛋白的形态、空间分布和含量方面。
