Thermo Fisher Scientific recently announced the launch of their CytoVista™ tissue clearing reagents which are designed for use with both 3D cell culture models as well as whole tissues. The CytoVista™ tissue clearing workflow is compatible with most fluorophores, including fluorescent proteins that are detected with common fluorescent imaging instruments, such as wide-field microscopes, high content analyzers, confocal microscopes, and lightsheet microscopes.
The CytoVista™ portfolio is designed to allow for easy-to-use tissue clearing and is comprised of several kits for first time users that allow any researcher to adopt tissue clearing into their research for a few hundred dollars. With the CytoVista™ products, a researcher can easily transition from traditional 2D histology towards imaging their tissues in 3D to get a more complete understanding of complex tissues and heterogeneously expressed biomarkers.
The CytoVista™ tissue clearing technology sufficiently clears tissue for 3D fluorescent imaging, but unlike other clearing techniques such as CLARITY, Scale, BABB and i/3/uDISCO does not significantly change the tissue morphology. For precious samples or for studies where validation is required, the tissue clearing can be reversed, and the tissue can be processed for histology studies, like H&E staining.
Tissue Clearing of Whole Tissues
For tissues that are easier to clear, like brain, lung, intestine, skin, and tissues of less than 250-µm thickness, treatment with CytoVista™ Tissue Clearing Reagent is sufficient for 3D imaging. However, tissues of more than 250-µm thickness or that are hard to clear like kidney, liver, heart, and placenta will require an initial treatment with CytoVista™ Tissue Clearing Reagent followed by treatment with CytoVista™ Tissue Clearing Enhancer.
Tissue Clearing for 3D Cell Culture Models (Organoids, Microtissues, Spheroids)
When imaging 3D cell culture models, opacity prevents the imaging of the interior of these models. However, with the CytoVista™ 3D Cell Culture Clearing Reagent the entire population of cells within 3D cell culture models can be imaged using confocal or widefield microscopy.