Best Practices for 3D Cell Imaging

Posted by

Teach Me in 10

Despite the growing relevance of 3D cell culture as a research model, imaging techniques used to characterize these models are highly limited. Due to the thickness and opacity of 3D cellular structures, most current imaging technologies cannot penetrate to the center of the tissues, resulting in only the outer two to three layers of cells being detected. This causes the dark centers that are often seen in images of 3D cell culture models. This proves highly problematic for accurate analysis as these outer cells are most exposed to compounds, nutrients and oxygen and thus do not reflect the entire cell population. In this Teach Me in 10 we speak with Dr. Ann Rossi Bilodeau about the best practices for 3D cell imaging, whether tissue clearing reagent can be used to clear spheroids expressing fluorescent proteins and we learn more about the new 3D Clear Tissue Clearing reagent from Corning.