Pancreas Optical Clearing and 3-D Microscopy in Health and Diabetes

Introduction

Techniques

Although basic optical clearing to render tissues transparent was first described by the German anatomist Walter Spalteholz over 100 years ago, the recent decade has seen a rapid growth in advanced clearing methods applicable for whole body or organ imaging to single cell resolution (16, 17). Optical clearing is readily accomplished in a standard laboratory and new procedures can be found nearly weekly in the literature for different organs and species ( Table 1 ). Optical clearing methods are based on obtaining a high degree of tissue transparency and matching of the sample refractive index (RI) to that of the imaging media to remove light scattering (54). Most tissues are comprised of ~80% water (RI=1.33), 10% proteins (RI>1.44), and 10% lipids (RI>1.45) (55). Methods are broadly based on physical or chemical strategies with organic solvents or aqueous solutions used for the latter. Several excellent reviews are available that detail each optical clearing method advantages and disadvantages (45, 56–59). Early optical clearing methods used organic chemicals [e.g., benzyl alcohol–methyl salicylate, benzyl alcohol–benzyl benzoate (BABB), and solvents used in 3-D imaging of solvent-cleared organs (3DISCO)] (27). Generally these methods achieve high transparency within a few days by removing lipids and homogenizing refractive indices (RIs) of the samples, and they are compatible with whole-mount immunolabeling (48, 60). Solvent based clearing methods may use toxic chemicals and steps should be performed using a fume hood and suitable personal protective equipment. Recent methods have been named with acronyms such as immunolabeling-enabled imaging of solvent-cleared organs (iDISCO) (60), clear, unobstructed brain/body imaging cocktails and computational analysis (CUBIC) (17, 27, 61, 62), clear lipid-exchanged acrylamide-hybridized rigid imaging/immunostaining/in situ hybridization-compatible tissue hydrogel (CLARITY), and passive CLARITY technique (PACT) (38, 63–65).

The original CLARITY manuscript by Chung et al. (65) described four key steps: (1) hydrogel tissue embedding using a ratio of 4% acrylamide monomer to 0.05% bis-acrylamide followed by polymerization; (2) clearing secondary to lipid removal using 4% sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) detergent buffer within a custom built electrophoretic tissue clearing system (ETC); (3) immunostaining; and (4) tissue RI matching and imaging. Several modifications were subsequently published in favor of “passive clearing” without the use of ETC to avoid oxidative tissue artifacts with several variations in the amount of paraformaldehyde (0-4%), acrylamide monomer (1-4%) and bis-acrylamide in the hydrogel mixture depending on target organ (63, 66, 67).

Despite their differences in chemical and/or optical properties, the organic solvent, aqueous reagent, and electrophoresis-assisted clearing methods all extend our view of neurovascular networks (>>100 µm) with 3-D microscopy compared with the images acquired from classic IHC and H&E histology (3-5 µm in thickness). To apply tissue clearing, the key question is whether a specific clearing technique changes the sample chemical and/or cellular environment that causes artifacts in signal detection. For example, in CLARITY, the use of sodium dodecyl sulfate (SDS) treatment and electrophoresis to remove cellular membranes is likely to disturb membrane receptor proteins. Thus, studies of the nerve-receptor association in space will be better accepted if a passive aqueous-based clearing method (e.g., sugar reagent) is employed compared with CLARITY. Likewise, leukocytes and their vascular receptor association in space will be better examined in an aqueous environment, because disturbing the membranes for 3-D imaging may create false negative results in signal detection. However, we need to stress that the false negative result may also come from scattering in deep-tissue imaging. Thus, adding a positive control in the specimen (e.g., nuclear staining) can help investigators monitor the resolving power (e.g., resolving two adjacent nuclei in an islet) across the optical depth in deep-tissue pancreatic and islet imaging.

Volumetric microscopy has also paralleled optical clearing methods with advancements in confocal, multiphoton and lightsheet microscopes. Advantages of the lightsheet microscopes are faster scanning speeds, reduced photobleaching, and good resolution at high tissue penetration depths. When access to lightsheet microscopes is not feasible, confocal microscopy provides an excellent alternative with single-cell resolution. While any type of fluorescent microscope can be used to image optically-cleared tissue, the microscope imaging chamber must be able to accommodate the size of the sample and the stage configuration and imaging depth are dependent on the working distance of the objective. Most images can be obtained with regular air objectives between ×2 and ×20 magnifications. Specialized objectives for optically cleared samples over larger distances are available from multiple vendors such as Olympus and Zeiss. Users of optical clearing methods and advanced microscopy need also consider data storage requirements for both image acquisition and analysis. Additional storage space for the imaging microscope is required as well as additional memory and processing speed for image analysis workstations. The opensource software Fiji/ImageJ can be used for 2-D stitching and basic 3-D adjustments (68). Zeiss Zen software will also provide stitching and maximum intensity projections. Commercial software packages are available for advanced 3-D volume rendering and reconstruction such as Neurolucida360/Vesselucida (MBF), Arivis (FEI), and Imaris (Bitplane, Concord MA). Consideration of sample size and existing microscopes and image analysis software may thus dictate which optical clearing method is most suitable for a given laboratory. For those without sufficient local resources, the growing popularity of optical clearing methods generated several commercial sources services for clearing, microscopy, and analysis services (Visikol, ClearLight, LifeCanvas).

Challenges

Challenges related to optical clearing are relatively few. Acquisition of high-quality samples is important as for any down-stream application based on fixed samples. Fixation with 4% paraformaldehyde or 10% formalin is commonly employed in many laboratories. Cardiac perfusion is recommended for rodent studies in most part to remove red blood cells and their inherent high autofluorescence. However, immersion fixation is a reasonable alternative for rodents and the only method available for human biosamples. As for traditional immunolocalization, the duration of fixation is ideally kept to a minimum to avoid over-fixation of tissue antigens. Many primary antibodies utilized for formalin-fixed paraffin embedded samples work well for optical clearing and those tested in our laboratory are provided as a reference ( Table 2 ). A pre-testing step is advised for new primary antibodies and can be accomplished with fixed frozen thick sections (40µm) utilizing similar conditions as those for permeabilization before immunostaining and optical clearing. Wide applicability of primary antibodies remains an issue, particularly for immune markers. While some methods have successfully employed preconjugated primary antibodies (43), the majority of optical clearing methods employ standard rounds of primary antibodies followed by secondary antibodies to promote antibody penetration. A reported benefit of CLARITY was the ability to reiteratively strip antibodies and reprobe a sample several times (65). In practice, we have been unsuccessful in fully stripping samples from human pancreas cleared using CLARITY and also found limited antigenicity and/or diffusion of subsequent primary antibodies (Campbell-Thompson, unpublished results). As such, our more recent studies employ single clearing methods with multiplex immunostaining on 500µm sections rather than several mm sized pieces to extend use of a given sample, particularly those from rare organ donors with diabetes.

Equipment utilized in optical clearing is generally found in any modern molecular pathology laboratory and include access to fume hoods, refrigeration or ovens, rocker plates, and other ancillary small equipment for immunostaining and clearing steps. Microscope and image analysis software are two aspects to be considered before conducting clearing studies as this will influence sample size and numbers of channels for multiplex staining and analysis. As costs for multiphoton and lightsheet microscopes decrease, access to these microscopes will increase whether through institutional shared resources, subcontract, or collaboration. Image analysis expertise is also limited and laboratory staff become proficient in the software available to them. Expense of commercial 3-D software analysis programs is high. Finally, the greatest hurdle may be the large image file sizes achieved by these methods. Here too, limiting the number of antigens needs to be balanced with the rarity of the sample since reiterative staining is difficult.

Optical Clearing Examples

This introduction on optical clearing and imaging provides a basic starting point for studies on human and mouse pancreas in health and diabetes. We will now show examples of application of different clearing methods to demonstrate the versatility of optical clearing in human and mouse pancreas for determination of normal states and changes found with diabetes.

Sample Processing

Human pancreata not suitable for clinical purposes were collected from nondiabetic, brain-dead organ donors after written informed consent from legal representative or next of kin and were processed by the Network for Pancreatic Organ donors with Diabetes (nPOD) program at the University of Florida (UF) Diabetes Institute using methods previously reported (69). The nPOD samples used in this specific study were approved as nonhuman by the UF IRB (IRB201902530). Collection and use of human pancreatectomy specimens were approved by the Institutional Review Board of National Taiwan University Hospital (201703131RIND). All UF animal studies were conducted using published guidelines and regulations of the National Institutes of Health for the care and use of laboratory animals. The protocol was approved by the UF Institutional Animal Care and Use Committee (IACUC 202009976). All animal studies conducted at the National Tsing Hua University were reviewed and approved by the institutional animal use review board.

Conclusions

Both standard and modified optical clearing methods are well suited for studies of 3-D structure-function relationships for human and mouse pancreas and use readily available chemicals and imaging equipment. These methods are particularly advantageous for studies of diabetes due to known islet heterogeneity requiring examination of numerous islets and pancreas regions. Optical clearing methods can also be used in investigations of pancreatic cancer using patient or rodent samples or in vitro experiments examining acinar-ductal metaplasia. Advances in understanding failure of islet beta-cells in diabetes requires a wholistic examination of islets in their native environment as afforded by optical clearing and new findings are anticipated related to the role of the nervous, immune, and vascular systems in beta-cell biology from such studies.

Author Contributions

MC-T and S-CT designed the studies, performed experiments, prepared figures, and edited and revised the manuscript. All authors contributed to the article and approved the submitted version.

Funding

Funding provided by NIH 1R01DK122160, UC4 DK104155, U54 DK127823 and OT2 OD023861, Helmsley Charitable Trust 2015PG-T1D052 and JDRF 47-2014-1 and 2-SRA-2019-697-S-B to MC-T and Taiwan National Health Research Institutes (NHRI-EX109-10922EI) and Ministry of Science and Technology (MOST 108-2314-B-007-006-MY2) to S-CT.

Conflict of Interest

The authors declare that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.

Supplementary Material

The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fendo.2021.644826/full#supplementary-material