New See-through Organs Method Helps Study Disease Spread in the Body
Scientists have created a new chemical that makes organs and body parts transparent.
Researchers from the California Institute of Technology developed a new 'see-through-the-body' method that enables clear autopsy screening by making visible every cellular structure and tissues except bones. Tissue clearing or passive clarity technique (PCT) is a procedure involving the usage of dehydrants and cleansing agents that make body parts almost translucent. This process was conceptualized almost a century ago but was recently tested on the bodies of dead rodents.
The experts injected a hydrogel in to the blood vessels and other connecting parts of the brain and spinal cord that released detergents to remove lipid cells from the tissues of the skinned euthanized rodent body samples. The bodies of the mice turned transparent within one week and they became see-through after two weeks of PCT.
Conventional post-mortem examination and necropsy requires highly specialized surgical procedure to dissect internal organs and body parts. But, the new technique is far more beneficial and can aid in the detection of diseases, mapping the details of the nervous system and spread of cancer cells in laboratory animals. The authors hope this process will be employed in examining biopsy samples of human patients, reports the Laboratory Equipment.
"Our methodology has the potential to accelerate any scientific endeavor that would benefit from whole-organism mapping, including the study of how peripheral nerves and organs can profoundly affect cognition and mental processing, and vice versa," said Viviana Gradinaru, study author and researcher at the California Institute of Technology, reports the Independent.
"Our easy-to-use tissue clearing protocols, which employ readily available and cost-effective reagents and equipment, will make the subcellular interrogation of large tissue samples an accessible undertaking within the broader research and clinical communities."
More information is available online in the journal Cell.
