Making live mammalian tissues transparent for imaging experiments without compromising their normal cellular functions has been a long-standing challenge. An isotonic and minimally invasive optical clearing medium for live mammalian cells and tissues (named SeeDB-Live) paves the way for deep-tissue live imaging of cellular functions ex vivo and in vivo.
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References
Ueda, H. R. et al. Tissue clearing and its applications in neuroscience. Nat. Rev. Neurosci. 21, 61–79 (2020). A review article on tissue clearing techniques for fixed mammalian tissues.
Zhu, D. et al. Recent progress in tissue optical clearing. Laser Photonics Rev. 7, 732–757 (2013). A review article that summarizes tissue clearing techniques applicable to tissues in vivo, such as skin and skull.
Ou et al. Achieving optical transparency in live animals with absorbing molecules. Science 385, eadm6869 (2024). This study achieved optical transparency in live animals using safe food dyes, but the solution that was used was extremely hypertonic.
Ke, M.-T., Fujimoto, S. & Imai, T. SeeDB: a simple and morphology-preserving optical clearing agent for neuronal circuit reconstruction. Nat. Neurosci. 16, 1154–1161 (2013). This study reported SeeDB, a fructose-based tissue clearing agent that is safe and useful for fixed tissues but has high osmolality.
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This is a summary of: Inagaki, S. et al. Isotonic and minimally invasive optical clearing media for live cell imaging ex vivo and in vivo. Nat. Methods https://doi.org/10.1038/10.1038/s41592-026-03023-y (2026).
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Live imaging of neuronal dynamics in transparent mouse brains. Nat Methods (2026). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-026-03022-z
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41592-026-03022-z
