Considerations for Measurement of Embryonic Organ Growth

Organogenesis is a complex coordinated process of cell proliferation, growth, migration, and apoptosis. Differential growth rates, particularly during cardiogenesis, play a role in establishing morphology. Studies using stereological and cell sorting methods derive averages of morphogenetic parameters for an organ. To understand tissue composition and differential growth, the researcher must determine a number of morphogenetic parameters in the developing organ. Such measurements require sectioning to enable identification of organ borders, tissue components and cell types, three‐dimensional (3D)‐reconstruction of sections to visualize morphology and a 3D‐measurement scheme to build local morphogenetic information. Although thick the section confocal microscopy partially solves these issues, information loss at the section surface hampers the reconstruction of 3D morphology. Episcopic imaging provides the correct morphology but lacks histological procedures to identify multiple cell types. The 3D‐measurement scheme is based on systematic sampling, with overlapping sample volumes, of the entire organ in the aligned image stack. For each sample volume, morphogenetic variables are calculated and results projected back to the cube (boxel) at the sample volume center. Boxel size determines spatial resolution of the final quantitative 3D‐reconstruction whereas size of the sample volume determines the precision of the morphogenetic information. The methods described here can be used to measure tissue volume, proliferation and cell size, to determine contribution and distribution of cell types in a tissue and to display this information in a quantitative 3D‐reconstruction. Anat Rec, 302:49–57, 2019. © 2018 Wiley Periodicals, Inc.