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Figure 1. Mouse heart before and after optical
clearing. A: Mouse heart in air, before dehydration and clearing. B: The same heart, after dehydration and
clearing with 1:2 (v/v) benzyl alcohol: benzyl benzoate (BABB). C: The same heart, dehydrated, cleared and placed
in a cuvette filled with BABB. A ruler was placed behind the cuvette to
demonstrate the heart’s transparency in BABB. Scale bar= 3 mm. |
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Mapping the myocardial
fiber organization is important for assessing the electrical and mechanical
properties of normal and diseased hearts.
Current methods to determine the fiber organization have several
limitations: histological sectioning mechanically distorts the tissue and is labor-intensive,
while diffusion tensor imaging has low spatial resolution and requires expensive MRI scanners. Here, we
utilized optical clearing, a fluorescent dye, and confocal microscopy to create 3D reconstructions of the myocardial fiber organization of
guinea pig and mouse hearts. We have
optimized the staining and clearing procedure to allow for the nondestructive imaging
of whole hearts with a thickness up to 3.5 mm. Myocardial fibers could clearly be identified at all depths in all
preparations. |
