Clearing and labeling techniques for large-scale biological tissues

Abstract

Clearing and labeling techniques for large-scale biological tissues enable simultaneous extraction of molecular and structural information with minimal disassembly of the sample, facilitating the integration of molecular, cellular and systems biology across different scales. Recent years have witnessed an explosive increase in the number of such methods and their applications, reflecting heightened interest in organ-wide clearing and labeling across many fields of biology and medicine. In this review, we provide an overview and comparison of existing clearing and labeling techniques and discuss challenges and opportunities in the investigations of large-scale biological systems.