Expansion microscopy of banked brain tissue.
Overview
- Apex Neuroscience, Salem, USA
- panluminate Inc., New Haven, USA
- Friedman Brain Institute, Departments of Pathology, Neuroscience, and Artificial Intelligence & Human Health, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, USA
- Neuropathology Brain Bank & Research Core and Ronald M. Loeb Center for Alzheimer's Disease, Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, New York, USA
Abstract
Expansion microscopy (ExM) physically enlarges biological specimens to enable ultrastructural imaging with conventional fluorescence microscopes. However, its performance in postmortem human brain tissue is unclear. Here, we evaluated how a previously established ExM protocol performs on cortical tissue from eight banked brains with postmortem intervals ranging from 40 minutes to 91 hours, and compared these data with electron microscopy (EM) on a subset of matched samples. Both techniques revealed similar patterns of ultrastructural features, including irregular, rounded, unstained spaces as postmortem artifacts that increased with longer postmortem intervals. While EM provided superior resolution for synaptic details, ExM enabled more high-throughput volumetric imaging of neural circuits. ExM also enabled molecular annotation of ultrastructure through immunofluorescence, as demonstrated by SMI-312 neurofilament and γ-protocadherin labeling. Our findings show that ExM can visualize aspects of ultrastructure in routinely banked brain tissue. While EM provides better resolution for fine synaptic detail, ExM offers a complementary approach that combines nanoscale imaging with molecular specificity and more accessible high-throughput volumetric capabilities.
Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.
Code
The paper links to its data, not to its authors' code: see the Data section.
Tracing map
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Data
Datasets cited
- zenodo:19616438, at Zenodo; found in “Data availability”
- zenodo:19666865, at Zenodo; found in “Data availability”
- zenodo:19669788, at Zenodo; found in “Data availability”
Data availability
The ExM data, and the EM data that are new to this paper, can be publicly accessed on Zenodo, available in these three repositories: https://
Reproduced under the paper's license (CC BY), from the paper cited above.
Versions
The history of this record: each version stored by the harvester or made by a correction of its authors or of the maintainers of its code, and what changed in its facts. The texts of the paper (its abstract, its availability statements) are not part of it; versions that changed only those are not listed.
Version 1, 27 September 2026: the first record
Recorded: type, language, journal, volume, pages, dates, 9 authors, 6 keywords, 31 references.
Cite
This paper
McKenzie, A. T., Keberle, A., Slaughter, A., Garrood, M., M'Saad, O., Gulcicek, J., Bouadi, O., Crary, J. F., & Farrell, K. (2026). Expansion microscopy of banked brain tissue. Free neuropathology, 7, 15. https://
BibTeX
@article{mckenzie2026exp
author = {McKenzie, Andrew T. and Keberle, Alicia and Slaughter, Andria and Garrood, Macy and M'Saad, Ons and Gulcicek, Jonathan and Bouadi, Ouzéna and Crary, John F. and Farrell, Kurt},
title = {{Expansion microscopy of banked brain tissue}},
journal = {Free neuropathology},
year = {2026},
month = jun,
volume = {7},
pages = {15},
publisher = {Free Neuropathology General Assembly},
issn = {2699-4445},
doi = {10.17879/
url = {https://
pmid = {42422192},
pmcid = {PMC13344129}
}
RIS
TY - JOUR
AU - McKenzie, Andrew T.
AU - Keberle, Alicia
AU - Slaughter, Andria
AU - Garrood, Macy
AU - M'Saad, Ons
AU - Gulcicek, Jonathan
AU - Bouadi, Ouzéna
AU - Crary, John F.
AU - Farrell, Kurt
TI - Expansion microscopy of banked brain tissue
T2 - Free neuropathology
J2 - Free Neuropathol
PY - 2026
DA - 2026/
VL - 7
SP - 15
SN - 2699-4445
PB - Free Neuropathology General Assembly
DO - 10.17879/
UR - https://
LA - en
ER -
CSL-JSON
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"language": "en",
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