Can Developments in Tissue Optical Clearing Aid Super-Resolution Microscopy Imaging?

Abstract

The rapid development of super-resolution microscopy (SRM) techniques opens new avenues to examine cell and tissue details at a nanometer scale. Due to compatibility with specific labelling approaches, in vivo imaging and the relative ease of sample preparation, SRM appears to be a valuable alternative to laborious electron microscopy techniques. SRM, however, is not free from drawbacks, with the rapid quenching of the fluorescence signal, sensitivity to spherical aberrations and light scattering that typically limits imaging depth up to few micrometers being the most pronounced ones. Recently presented and robustly optimized sets of tissue optical clearing (TOC) techniques turn biological specimens transparent, which greatly increases the tissue thickness that is available for imaging without loss of resolution. Hence, SRM and TOC are naturally synergistic techniques, and a proper combination of these might promptly reveal the three-dimensional structure of entire organs with nanometer resolution. As such, an effort to introduce large-scale volumetric SRM has already started; in this review, we discuss TOC approaches that might be favorable during the preparation of SRM samples. Thus, special emphasis is put on TOC methods that enhance the preservation of fluorescence intensity, offer the homogenous distribution of molecular probes, and vastly decrease spherical aberrations. Finally, we review examples of studies in which both SRM and TOC were successfully applied to study biological systems.

Tissue clearing and its applications in human tissues: A review

“…[ 19 ] The recently developed stabilized DISCO (sDISCO) to better preserves fluorescent signals for over a year by stabilizing the immersion solution by adding antioxidants. [ 21 ] Apart from FPs and fluorescence chemical probes‐relied DISCO methods, immunological deep labeling methods were used to study mouse organs, human embryos, and human cancer biopsy samples. Renier et al.…”

“…[19] The recently developed stabilized DISCO (sDISCO) to better preserves fluorescent signals for over a year by stabilizing the immersion solution by adding antioxidants. [21] Apart from FPs and fluorescence chemical probes-relied DISCO methods, immunological deep labeling methods were used to study mouse organs, human embryos, and human cancer biopsy samples. Renier et al developed immunolabeling-enabled DISCO (iDISCO ), combining different chemicals in the pretreatment solutions with permeabilization to successfully immunolabel whole mouse organs for labeling large tissues with specific antibodies.…”