Tissue Sectioning by Electro-Dissociation

Currently there is no technique to produce thin (0.004-0.01 mm) serial sections of large fresh tissue specimens that are suitable for high-resolution in situ protein/gene expression studies without ice artifact or fixation-induced molecular damage. Traditional frozen sectioning preserves protein and nucleic acid structure, but the inherent ice artifact precludes reconstruction of protein and mRNA expression patterns in 3-dimensions. Since the limitations of the existing sectioning techniques result from the fact that they rely on mechanical cutting which in turn require the tissue to be stiff, we suggest a new approach to cut tissue via an electro erosion process that utilizes focus radio frequency (RF).