Transmission electron microscopy and serial sections for light microscopy from the same block in routine renal pathology.

Abstract

Routine serial sections for light microscopy (LM) from one sample and transmission electron microscopy (TEM) from selected areas of another sample are current procedures in renal pathology. At the present time, there are methods available to perform high-resolution light microscopy (HRLM) and TEM from the same block. However, this technology is not directly applicable or convenient for routine renal biopsies. Most methods presently available to obtain TEM studies from different areas of the same large HRLM block use reembedding methods, which considerably delay TEM studies, or mesa technics that fragment and waste the original block. Present methods to obtain serial sections from plastic blocks have been used in plant and animal morphology and need to be modified for renal pathology. In the present article, the authors present a technic that produces immediate TEM sections from different areas of the same HRLM block. This method does not produce fragmentation or waste of the original block, and TEM sections are obtained within two hours after large HRLM sections are screened. The latter sections are mounted serially on a regular microscopic slide on 8-15 separate wells painted with water-repellent ink. The methods are simple and produce large HRLM and TEM sections in 24 hours, avoiding separate samples for LM and TEM studies.