Looking inside the heart: a see-through view of the vascular tree

Area of Science:

• Cardiovascular Biology
• Biomedical Imaging
• Microscopy Techniques

Background:

• Detailed 3D imaging of the heart vasculature is crucial for understanding heart diseases.
• Current imaging methods may lack the resolution needed for cellular-level analysis of cardiac structures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel 3D imaging technique for the cardiac vascular tree.
• To enable high-resolution, cellular-level visualization of heart vasculature.

Main Methods:

• Combined the CUBIC tissue clearing protocol with *in vivo* administration of fluorescent-labeled lectin.
• Utilized Selective Plane Illumination Microscopy (SPIM) for image acquisition.
• Developed a novel methodological approach for cardiac vascular imaging.

Main Results:

• Successfully obtained high-resolution 3D images of the entire cardiac vascular tree.
• Demonstrated the feasibility of visualizing intricate vascular structures at the cellular level.
• The combined technique offers enhanced visualization capabilities.

Conclusions:

• The novel CUBIC clearing and fluorescent lectin labeling technique, coupled with SPIM, provides unprecedented 3D visualization of the cardiac vasculature.
• This approach has the potential to significantly advance the study of cardiac vascular remodeling in diseases like coronary artery disease.