Precision vibratome for high-speed ultrathin biotissue cutting and organ-wide imaging

Abstract

Summary: Cutting tissues into ultrathin slices is highly desired in sectioning-based organ-wide imaging. However, it is difficult to perform tissue cutting at a high speed with excellent quality. Here, we design a precision vibratome based on a paired double parallelogram flexure, which enables a vibrating blade to move strictly along a straight line. Meanwhile, we develop a high-speed cutting method that does not compromise cutting quality, which the vibratome operated at a high frequency mode. The characterized parasitic motion errors of a 180-Hz vibratome were less than 300 nm. It achieved a cutting speed six times that of an 85-Hz vibratome with acceptable quality. The capacity of the vibratome was investigated by organ-wide imaging, and the results revealed that it can be adapted in different tissues, such as the mouse brain and liver. This new vibratome shows great potential in speeding up organ-wide imaging applications especially for large volume biotissues.

Keywords

• Biological sciences
• Biological sciences research methodologies
• Biology experimental methods
• Biotechnology