A tunable refractive index matching medium for live imaging cells, tissues and model organisms

  1. Tobias Boothe
  2. Lennart Hilbert
  3. Michael Heide
  4. Lea Berninger
  5. Wieland B Huttner
  6. Vasily Zaburdaev
  7. Nadine L Vastenhouw
  8. Eugene W Myers
  9. David N Drechsel
  10. Jochen C Rink  Is a corresponding author
  1. Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Germany
  2. Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Germany
  3. Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Germany

Abstract

In light microscopy, refractive index mismatches between media and sample cause spherical aberrations that often limit penetration depth and resolution. Optical clearing techniques can alleviate these mismatches, but they are so far limited to fixed samples. We present Iodixanol as a non-toxic medium supplement that allows refractive index matching in live specimens and thus a substantial improvement of the live-imaging of primary cell cultures, planarians, zebrafish and human cerebral organoids.

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Article and author information

Author details

  1. Tobias Boothe

    Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  2. Lennart Hilbert

    Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  3. Michael Heide

    Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  4. Lea Berninger

    Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  5. Wieland B Huttner

    Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0003-4143-7201
  6. Vasily Zaburdaev

    Max Planck Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems, Dresden, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  7. Nadine L Vastenhouw

    Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-8782-9775
  8. Eugene W Myers

    Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  9. David N Drechsel

    Research Institute of Molecular Pathology, Dresden, Germany
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
  10. Jochen C Rink

    Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Dresden, Germany
    For correspondence
    rink@mpi-cbg.de
    Competing interests
    The authors declare that no competing interests exist.
    ORCID icon "This ORCID iD identifies the author of this article:" 0000-0001-6381-6742

Funding

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Individual research support programs)

  • Tobias Boothe

The funders had no role in study design, data collection and interpretation, or the decision to submit the work for publication.

Reviewing Editor

  1. Clare M Waterman, National Institutes of Health, United States

Version history

  1. Received: March 28, 2017
  2. Accepted: July 13, 2017
  3. Accepted Manuscript published: July 14, 2017 (version 1)
  4. Version of Record published: September 4, 2017 (version 2)
  5. Version of Record updated: September 14, 2017 (version 3)

Copyright

© 2017, Boothe et al.

This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License permitting unrestricted use and redistribution provided that the original author and source are credited.

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  1. Tobias Boothe
  2. Lennart Hilbert
  3. Michael Heide
  4. Lea Berninger
  5. Wieland B Huttner
  6. Vasily Zaburdaev
  7. Nadine L Vastenhouw
  8. Eugene W Myers
  9. David N Drechsel
  10. Jochen C Rink
(2017)
A tunable refractive index matching medium for live imaging cells, tissues and model organisms
eLife 6:e27240.
https://doi.org/10.7554/eLife.27240

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