A quantitative study of the preparation of rabbit aortic endothelial cells for scanning electron microscopy

Quantitative studies were done with the scanning electron microscope (SEM) on aortic endothelial cells from ten rabbits. Of these, five were plastic casts and five were dehydrated with three different, but standard, techniques. The results indicated that all forms of dehydration caused significant shrinkage artefacts and that these were different in different directions in both the thoracic and abdominal aorta. The greatest shrinkage was found with the critical point drying technique, 45% in the abdominal aorta and 31% in the thoracic aorta. In the abdominal aorta this shrinkage was mainly due to a shrinkage in length (36%) rather than a shrinkage in width (15%). In comparison, in the thoracic aorta critical point drying resulted in a 15% shrinkage in length and a 19% shrinkage in width. Air drying and alcohol dehydration caused considerable shrinkage (29% and 18% respectively in the thoracic aorta, 29% nad 36% respectively in the abdominal aorta). Directional differences were also found with these techniques, for instance alcohol dehydration in the thoracic aorta resulted in 0% shrinkage in length and 18% shrinkage in width.