Three-dimensional aspects of the structural characteristics and kidney angioarchitecture of adult and aged Wistar rats: a scanning electron microscopy study.

The aim of this study was to describe the structural morphological characteristics and organization of the kidney angioarchitecture in adult and aged Wistar rats using different scanning electron microscopy (SEM) methods. Twenty male Wistar rats (Rattus norvegicus) were divided into two groups: the Adult Group (n = 10), which included animals at 3 months of age, and the Aged Group (n = 10), which included animals at 24 months of age. Kidney samples from both groups were analyzed using three distinct SEM methods: coronal sections, cryofracturing and vascular corrosion casts/angioarchitecture. This study demonstrates the specificity of each technique for three-dimensional morphological analyses of the kidney using SEM. In the coronal sections, it was possible to view the structures on a given plane; the stratigraphy was best observed in the cryofracture method, and the vascular corrosion casts showed the organization and arrangement of the angioarchitecture. Thus, we concluded that the SEM methods together provide the best description of the morphological characteristics of normal and pathological kidneys of adult and aged Wistar rats.