Scalable tissue labeling and clearing of intact human organs

33Citations
Citations of this article
56Readers
Mendeley users who have this article in their library.

Abstract

Advances in tissue labeling and clearing methods include improvement of tissue transparency, better preservation of fluorescence signal, compatibility with immunostaining and large sample volumes. However, as existing methods share the common limitation that they can only be applied to human tissue slices, rendering intact human organs transparent remains a challenge. Here, we describe experimental details of the small-micelle-mediated human organ efficient clearing and labeling (SHANEL) pipeline, which can be applied for cellular mapping of intact human organs. We have successfully cleared multiple human organs, including kidney, pancreas, heart, lung, spleen and brain, as well as hard tissue like skull. We also describe an advanced volumetric imaging system using a commercial light-sheet fluorescence microscope that can accommodate most human organs and a pipeline for whole-organ imaging and visualization. The complete experimental process of labeling and clearing whole human organs takes months and the analysis process takes several weeks, depending on the organ types and sizes.

Cite

CITATION STYLE

APA

Mai, H., Rong, Z., Zhao, S., Cai, R., Steinke, H., Bechmann, I., & Ertürk, A. (2022). Scalable tissue labeling and clearing of intact human organs. Nature Protocols, 17(10), 2188–2215. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41596-022-00712-8

Register to see more suggestions

Mendeley helps you to discover research relevant for your work.

Already have an account?

Save time finding and organizing research with Mendeley

Sign up for free