Ex vivo imaging of excised tissue using vital dyes and confocal microscopy.

Vital dyes routinely used for staining cultured cells can also be used to stain and image live tissue slices ex vivo. Staining tissue with vital dyes allows researchers to collect structural and functional data simultaneously and can be used for qualitative or quantitative fluorescent image collection. The protocols presented here are useful for structural and functional analysis of viable properties of cells in intact tissue slices, allowing for the collection of data in a structurally relevant environment. With these protocols, vital dyes can be applied as a research tool to disease processes and properties of tissue not amenable to cell culture-based studies.