Frozen cell lines are stored to prepare
in vitro/in vivo models of cancer (glioblastoma, epidermoid carcinoma, cervical or breast cancer), and to generate 2D cell cultures or even more innovative 3D cell cultures, in order to study interactions of drugs or contrast agents with cells of interest, before moving to animal models.
Histological studies performed after MRI acquisitions are a classical way to confirm MRI data and to give more information about organ features (structure, active cells or dying cells, interactions between contrast agent and target, vasculature…) at a higher resolution than MRI. Immunostaining is usually performed on tissue slice of organ, especially brain, providing informations about the microenvironment (inflammation, apoptosis, generation of new cells…). Finally, new techniques are currently under development to perform tissue clearing, enabling for example deep imaging of the whole mouse brain (500-1000 μm).