I would try with the method of Welsch very quick running and valid for the fibers of the myocardium normal and pathological.

1) Bouin fixation.

2) Inclusion and paraffin sections of 5-6 microns.

After bringing water sections colorize 1 minute with thionine (CI 52,000) at 0.1% in ethanol 20 °.

3) Differentiate controlling the microscope in ethanol 80 ° (about 2 minutes).

4) Dehydrate ethanol 95 ° (3 minutes)

5) Ethanol 100 ° (6 minutes).

6) Xylene 10 minutes and close the slides with synthetic resin Eukitt.

best regards

Fabio

Dear Ali,

since you'ven't got an answer so far, just only as a short answer:

not knowing of a specific article or proper images to show or measure exactly what you want I recommend using for:

< 3d 2d measurement of "heart cell" or cardiomyocytes branching length measurement > and, additionally, PMC (to be found as a subsection-SearchField in ==> PubMed @http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed, see field: All Databases,scroll down to PMC) and /or enter URL:

...

you'll get with the latter at least 198 references to start with. Your task is not quite easy, since you must have either good (which means not only quality but also right section plane!) histology (serial H&E-) sections, but for a modern approach resin embedded serial semithin sections (1µm thick) to get the right / sound measurements. There are also some (if not many) papers dealing with measurement on TEM-sections.

Wish you all the best and good luck,

regards,

Wolfgang MUSS, PhD, SALZBURG, Austria

Thank you very much, Wolfgang.

Yeah, I'm looking for the proverbial needle in a haystack, and I don't know if it even exists!

you can use either confocal laser microscopy ar atomic forcemicroscopyy , hover ultra-thin sections examined by scanning Em coated with gold can also helpe

I would try with the method of Welsch very quick running and valid for the fibers of the myocardium normal and pathological.

1) Bouin fixation.

2) Inclusion and paraffin sections of 5-6 microns.

After bringing water sections colorize 1 minute with thionine (CI 52,000) at 0.1% in ethanol 20 °.

3) Differentiate controlling the microscope in ethanol 80 ° (about 2 minutes).

4) Dehydrate ethanol 95 ° (3 minutes)

5) Ethanol 100 ° (6 minutes).

6) Xylene 10 minutes and close the slides with synthetic resin Eukitt.

best regards

Fabio

I would suggest using Transmission Electron Microscopy (TEM). Once you have obtained the right section planes TEM will produce the most accurate measurements and ultra-structural imaging.