Selecting Suitable Method for Tissue Clearing Based on Tissue Properties

Recently, numerous tissue optical clearing techniques have been created to overcome the light scattering problem in imaging of tissue structures. Light scattering majorly happen due to inhomogen distribution of materials by different refractory indices (RI). The aim of tissue clearing is reducing the light scattering either by eliminating or diluting the membrane lipids as light scattering sources or by modifying the structure of extracellular matrix (ECM) as the scattering materials via swelling or shrinkage of tissues.Because the composition and structure of lipids and ECM of each tissue are unique, the response of each tissue to different tissue-clearing methods should also be different. Exploring these factors and their effects on clearing could be helpful in choosing the best clearing method for each tissue. These methods can be classified into three groups, including the solvent-based (BABB, iDISCO, Visikol HISTO), the aqueous-based (ClearT, SeeDB, ScaleS, CUBIC), and the hydrogel embedding (CLARITY, PACT) techniques. In present study, the features of tissues that should be regarded for selection of the suitable method for tissue clearing were studied.

Keywords:

Tissue clearing , Lipid extraction , Refractory indices.