2025-12-02 清華大学
A new method for making tissues see-through without changing their structure is making it possible to image the details of neurons in 3D.
<関連情報>
- https://www.tsinghua.edu.cn/en/info/1245/14622.htm
- https://www.cell.com/cell/abstract/S0092-8674(25)00813-X
VIVIT:イオン性ガラス組織を用いたスケールを超えた体積測定による生物学的構造の解明 VIVIT: Resolving trans-scale volumetric biological architectures via ionic glassy tissue
Yixiao Gao ∙ Fengyuan Xin,, ∙ Tao Wang ∙ … ∙ Kun Li ∙ Yichang Jia ∙ Kexin Yuan (苑克鑫)
Cell Published:August 11, 2025
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2025.07.023
Highlights
- VIVIT introduces ILs for tissue clearing with minimal distortion and high transparency
- VIVIT preserves tissue from crystal damage at low temperatures
- VIVIT enhances fluorescent signals from genetic and immunostained labels
- VIVIT allows the revelation of trans-scale 3D biostructures
Summary
Biological structures across scales integrate seamlessly to perform essential functions. While various histological methods have been developed to reveal these intricate structures, preserving the integrity of large-volume architectures while revealing microstructures with high resolution remains a major challenge. Here, we introduce vitreous ionic-liquid-solvent-based volumetric inspection of trans-scale biostructure (VIVIT), a 3D histological method leveraging the chemical properties of ionic liquids. VIVIT transforms biological tissue into an ionic glassy state, which enables optical clearing with minimal distortion and high transparency, preserves tissue from low-temperature crystal damage, and amplifies fluorescent signals from both genetically encoded and immunostained labels, thus yielding precise and reliable mapping of fluorescent signals within intact 3D architectures. Using VIVIT, we demonstrate the link between the modality of synaptic inputs to multisensory thalamic neurons and the targets of their brain-wide outputs and identified aspects of inhibitory control in the human cortex. VIVIT thus offers opportunities to elucidate the organizational principles underlying trans-scale biostructures.
