Figure 1.

Surgical preparation of subcutaneous and intramuscular tumors for intravital microscopy (IVM) imaging. The mice were injected with tumor cells either subcutaneously on their flank (a) or intramuscularly in the gastrocnemius of the leg (b). After approximately 10 days, the tumors were exposed (aii,bii), tissue movement was surgically stabilized (aiii,biii), and the mouse was inverted and placed onto a heated (37 °C) microscope stage (aiv,biv). An i.v. cannula was inserted into the tail vein to provide anesthetic when necessary throughout the imaging procedure.