Interested to see how researchers are using tissue clearing to assess lung organoids in their entirety? Researchers from Philip Morris in Switzerland recently published a paper describing their approach to the phenotypic analysis of these models using Visikol HISTO-M and high content fluorescent microscopy.
With the advent of 3D cell culture models, researchers are now able to ask and answer more complex biological questions as well as to model more complex three-dimensional structures such as the lungs. In this publication, the researchers described a novel bronchial 3D organotypic air-liquid interface (ALI) model (hBR-ALI) as well as a unique workflow to image and characterize these models in their entirety. The use of a complex three-dimensional bronchial model presents unique imaging and image analysis problems due to limitations with light penetration and the availability of 3D image analysis software.
To mitigate these problems and to allow for the complete characterization of these models, the researchers leveraged the Visikol HISTO-M tissue clearing approach to reduce overall light refraction which enabled deep three-dimensional imaging.
Throughout the work, the researchers demonstrate the applicability of the technology platform by evaluating two example use cases: Assessing goblet cell hyperplasia in hBR-ALI by using interleukin (IL)-13 and monitoring differentiation status through HCI evaluation markers representative of ciliated epithelial cells and goblet cells (Muc5AC [mucin 5AC]).
The researchers showed that their high content imaging approach was highly applicable for use with imaging models grown on transwell inserts and can be applied to several other models such as skin epithelia and 3D intestinal systems.
If you are interested in leveraging the Visikol HISTO-M technology within your research or learning more about Visikol’s high content imaging and 3D cell culture services, please reach out to our team.