Focused ion beam-scanning electron microscope: exploring large volumes of atherosclerotic tissue

Atherogenesis is a pathological condition in which changes in the ultrastructure and in the localization of proteins occur within the vasculature during all stages of the disease. To gain insight in those changes, high-resolution imaging is necessary. Some of these changes will only be present in a small number of cells, positioned in a 'sea' of non-affected cells. To localize this relatively small number of cells, there is a need to first navigate through a large area of the sample and subsequently zoom in onto the area of interest. This approach enables the study of specific cells within their in vivo environment and enables the study of (possible) interactions of these cells with their surrounding cells/environment. The study of a sample in a correlative way using light and electron microscopy is a promising approach to achieve this; however, it is very laborious and additional ultrastructural techniques might be very valuable to find the places of interest. In this report we show that the focused ion beam-scanning electron microscope is a powerful tool to study biological specimens in a correlative way. With this microscope one can scan for the area of interest at low magnification, in this case the atherosclerotic plaque, and subsequently zoom in, for further analysis on an ultrastructural level, rendering valuable and detailed two- and three-dimensional information of, in this case, the endothelial cells and the vessel wall. Moreover, in combination with pre-embedment labelling of surface exposed antigens, the method allows insight into the 3D distribution of these markers.