Fluorescence and confocal laser scannig microscopy of H&E staned sections for the study of elastic fiber in skin and some skin disorders

RESUMO

Elastic fibers are important components of the skin and contribute to its biomechanical properties. Primary changes in elastic fiber structure are responsible for some diseases while modifications of the elastic fibers results from disorders in other extracellular matix components. We have previously suggested that examination of H&E stained sections by fluorence microscopy allows for good imaging of elastic fiber structure and distribution. Since these paramenters are important for the chacacterization of elastic fibers and for diagnosing some skin diseases, we show in this paper that dermal elastic fibers are consistently imaged by H&E plus fluorescence microscopy, by the analysis of normal and diseased skin samples, and that the use of confocal laser scanning microscopy greatly increases the image qualitity, which in turn will permit image analysis to be carried out. We are clearly convinced that the proposed procedure is a revelant tool in elastic fiber research and the present tecnique is of interest to a large group of investigators using H&E as a routine method.