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Updated: Nov 16, 2025
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Ex vivo Imaging of T Cells in Murine Lymph Node Slices with Widefield and Confocal Microscopes
Published on: July 15, 2011
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Acute Lymph Node Slices Are a Functional Model System to Study Immunity Ex Vivo.
Maura C Belanger1,2, Alexander G Ball3,2, Megan A Catterton1
1Department of Chemistry, University of Virginia College of Arts and Sciences, Charlottesville, Virginia 22904, United States.
ACS Pharmacology & Translational Science
|February 22, 2021
Summary
Live lymph node slices preserve tissue complexity for studying adaptive immunity. This validated platform maintains cell viability and function, enabling detailed immune response analysis.
Area of Science:
- Immunology
- Cell Biology
- Tissue Engineering
Background:
- Lymph nodes are crucial for adaptive immunity, but ex vivo studies often lose spatial organization or dynamic accessibility.
- Existing methods like cell suspensions or fixed tissues limit comprehensive analysis of lymph node functions.
- Live murine lymph node slices offer a potential solution to retain tissue complexity and enable dynamic studies.
Purpose of the Study:
- To systematically characterize live murine lymph node slices as a validated platform for studying immune responses.
- To assess the viability, immune activation, and antigen-specific functions of these ex vivo tissue slices.
- To establish optimized conditions for preparing and utilizing lymph node slices in immunological research.
Main Methods:
- Systematic characterization of live murine lymph node slices.
- Assessment of spatial organization and cell populations.
- Evaluation of 24-h viability, inflammation markers, and immune cell activation.
- Functional assays including T cell receptor cross-linking and antigen-specific cytokine secretion.
- Comparison with traditional cell suspension methods.
Main Results:
- Live lymph node slices successfully maintained spatial organization and native cell populations.
- Optimized slices demonstrated comparable 24-h viability and inflammation levels to cell suspensions.
- Slices exhibited robust responses to T cell receptor stimulation, including increased surface marker expression and cytokine secretion.
- The tissue slices processed protein antigens and showed antigen-specific cytokine secretion in response to ex vivo challenge in vaccinated animals.
Conclusions:
- Live murine lymph node slices represent a versatile and validated platform for immunological research.
- This method preserves the spatial complexity and dynamic accessibility of lymph nodes for ex vivo studies.
- Lymph node slices enable well-defined stimulation, time-course analysis, and parallel read-outs of immune functions.
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