Histochemical and X-ray microanalytical investigations of defined organs and cells in their true position within whole-body cryosections.

Large cryosections (up to 45 x 15 cm) have been made from an entire rat or hamster or from a large human organ such as a cross section of a leg obtained from amputation operations. The quality of the sections was found to be sufficient for a histochemical and a X-ray microanalytical characterization of individual cells in the tissues of interest. When histochemical stainings were applied on sections from a human leg, different muscle groups were analysed simultaneously for pathological changes and at the same time bone tissue, nerves and blood vessels could be investigated. It was possible to study pathological changes in relation to histochemical muscle fibre type and describe the dispersion of changes within a certain muscle. Analytical scanning electron microscopy (X-ray microanalysis) was useful for the description of the elemental composition of different organs on longitudinal sections of small animals and of different muscle fibres in the leg cross sections. The X-ray emission could be related to histochemical muscle fibre type and other parameters such as the degree of fibre atrophy.