A Dissection Method to Harvest Murine Popliteal Draining Lymph Nodes for Ex Vivo Imaging

Source: Rezende, R. M., et al. Visualizing Lymph Node Structure and Cellular Localization using Ex-Vivo Confocal Microscopy. J. Vis. Exp. (2019) This video demonstrates a dissection technique to harvest popliteal draining lymph nodes from the mouse hind legs. Lymph nodes play a critical role in bridging innate and adaptive immunity, and harvesting intact lymph nodes — with a preserved tissue structure and cellular viability — can help study local and systemic immune responses.