Application of Airy beam light sheet microscopy to examine early neurodevelopmental structures in 3D hiPSC-derived human cortical spheroids.
Dwaipayan Adhya, George Chennell, James A Crowe and 8 others
PMID 33482917WHAT IT FOUND
Airy beam light sheet microscopy with tissue clearing allowed 3D imaging of neural rosettes in human brain organoids.
This method visualized internal structures at depths greater than 500 micrometers, which conventional confocal microscopy could not achieve.
Key findings
01Airy beam light sheet microscopy combined with tissue clearing enabled visualization of internal neural rosette structures at depths greater than 500 micrometers.
02Conventional confocal microscopy failed to image intact spheroids beyond 100 micrometers depth due to signal loss.
03The new method revealed that neural rosette lumens develop into tube-like structures in 3D.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they found
Read the rest of this summary
You get three full summaries a month, free, and we do not ask for a card. Search, the TL;DRs and your library stay unlimited either way.
What it does not show
This is a laboratory study using stem cell-derived brain tissue in a dish, not a clinical trial with patients. The imaging method could only capture a part of the larger day 30 spheroids, not the whole structure. The protocol generates only dorsal forebrain cells, so it does not model the entire brain. Signal intensity still dropped at the deepest levels, even with clearing.
Declared interests
The study was funded by the Wellcome Trust, the European Research Council, the National Alliance for Research on Schizophrenia and Depression, and the Royal Society. No commercial conflicts of interest were declared.
The easy way to misread this
Do not interpret these findings as evidence of a treatment for autism or other neurodevelopmental disorders. This paper describes a new way to take pictures of lab-grown brain tissue. It does not test any therapy on patients or show how to treat a condition.