Design and fabrication of a crystal ribcage: an optically transparent ribcage to enable ex-vivo whole lung imaging
Embargo Date
2023-05-14
OA Version
Citation
Abstract
Pulmonary pathologies such as lung cancer, COPD, fibrosis, and infectious diseases are extremely prevalent affecting millions of people within the United States and when combined lung pathologies are the third highest cause of death within the United States. Improving our understanding of pulmonary mechanics, biology, and immunology, and their mutual interactions in health and disease is critical in deeper understanding of the (patho)physiology, and our ability to develop effective diagnostic and therapeutic strategies. The study of lung functionality at the cellular and molecular levels poses unique challenges given both the conformational constraints from the ribcage and the complex heterogeneous lung architecture. Lung intravital imaging windows have enabled the usage of optical imaging techniques in vivo, with limitations on imaging field of view, stabilizing lung motion, and lack of control on lung mechanics. Ex-vivo tissue slices, employed as another impactful strategy to probe the lung, maintain tissue architecture and cellular heterogeneity with the limitation of losing circulation and the air-liquid interface. Here, an optically transparent rib cage was developed that incorporates the geometrical, optical, and the surface properties of the mouse rib cage to study whole organ functioning lungs at the cellular and molecular levels under positive and negative ventilations. Employing this system, termed “crystal rib cage”, will enable wider usage of optical imaging techniques such as multiphoton microscopy and optical coherence tomography in the study of the lung at the cellular and molecular levels. Crystal rib cage enables longitudinal imaging across multiple lung surfaces while manipulating and monitoring lung ventilation and perfusion, to mechanistically probe lung mechanobiology and mechano-immunology.
Description
License
Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International