A mouse’s entire nervous system lights up in psychedelic hues. Clumps of immune cells attacking tumors give off a ghostly glow. The vessels that make up the body’s sewer system flare brightly.
These and other images are shining a new light on the inner workings of mice, thanks to a new technique that makes whole body imaging cheaper and faster, researchers report July 10 in Nature Biotechnology.
See-through mice are nothing new (SN: 8/14/14). But existing techniques to image their insides can be expensive, time-consuming or don’t hit the right target. Now, a study shows that chemically removing cholesterol — an essential component of cell membranes — from dead mice creates spongelike holes in tissues without destroying them. That means tailored antibodies can move through the holes to infiltrate every corner of the body and bind to proteins of interest to make entire anatomical features visible under fluorescent light.
Read the full article here