Confocal laser scanning microscopy
A confocal laser scanning microscope (FV1000, Olympus Corp., Tokyo, Japan) was used for
two- (X,Y) and three-dimensional (3D, X,Y,Z) high-resolution imaging of the vibrissa follicles in Gelfoam1 histoculture. Fluorescence images were obtained using the 4×/0.10 Plan N, 10×/0.30 Plan-NEOFLUAR, 20×/0.50 UPlan FL N, and 20×/1.00w XLUMplan FL objectives [11].