It's clearly the heart! Optical transparency, cardiac tissue imaging, and computer modelling. (January 2022)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Sands, Gregory B.; Ashton, Jesse L.; Trew, Mark L.; Baddeley, David; Walton, Richard D.; Benoist, David; Efimov, Igor R.; Smith, Nicolas P.; Bernus, Olivier; Smaill, Bruce H.
• Is Part Of: Progress in biophysics and molecular biology. Volume 168(2022)
• Page Start: 18
• Page End: 32
• Publication Date: 2022-01
• Subjects: Cardiac tissue -- Extended-volume imaging -- Image processing -- Microscopy -- Network modelling -- Tissue clearing; CCD Charge-Coupled Device -- Cx43 Connexin-43 -- ECM Extracellular Connective tissue Matrix -- NA Numerical Aperture -- PFA Paraformaldehyde -- PSF Point Spread Function -- RI Refractive Index -- sCMOS scientific Complementary Metal-Oxide Semiconductor -- SDS Sodium Dodecyl Sulphate -- SPIM Selective Plane Imaging Microscopy -- WD Working Distance -- WGA Wheat-Germ Agglutinin; Biophysics -- Periodicals; Biochemistry -- Periodicals; Biophysics -- Periodicals; Molecular Biology -- Periodicals; Biophysique -- Périodiques; Biochimie -- Périodiques; 571.4
• DOI: 10.1016/j.pbiomolbio.2021.06.005
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0079-6107

Abstract

Abstract: Recent developments in clearing and microscopy enable 3D imaging with cellular resolution up to the whole organ level. These methods have been used extensively in neurobiology, but their uptake in other fields has been much more limited. Application of this approach to the human heart and effective use of the data acquired present challenges of scale and complexity. Four interlinked issues need to be addressed: 1) efficient clearing and labelling of heart tissue, 2) fast microscopic imaging of human-scale samples, 3) handling and processing of multi-terabyte 3D images, and 4) extraction of structural information in computationally tractable structure-based models of cardiac function. Preliminary studies show that each of these requirements can be achieved with the appropriate application and development of existing technologies.