[Bone and Stem Cells. Intravital imaging of bone marrow microenvironment]

Various kinds of cell types, such as osteoclasts, osteoblasts, hematopoietic cells, and mesenchymal cells, have been reported to exist in the bone marrow and communicate with each other. Although there have been many previous studies about bone marrow microenvironment, most of them were analyzed by conventional methods such as histological analysis and flow cytometry. These methods could not observe the dynamic cell movement in living bone marrow. Recently rapid development of fluorescent imaging techniques enables us to understand the cellular dynamics in vivo . That's why we have originally established an advanced imaging system for visualizing living bone tissues with intravital two-photon microscopy. Here we show the latest data and the detailed methodology of intravital imaging of bone marrow microenvironment, and also discuss its further application.