Creating Transparent Organs

Aug-03-14 The PARS technique makes tissues transparent, allowing scientists to see through tissues and organs—or even an entire body—to study their cellular makeup.

Typically, seeing individual cells within a volume of tissue requires the tissue to be sliced very thin and separate images made of each slice to be re-assembled by a computer. To simplify the process, the team from Caltech built upon their CLARITY technique, which uses detergents to dissolve the lipids in brain cells and render the structure transparent. During this process, a clear hydrogel is also injected into the tissue to provide the necessary structural support.

The new PARS technique is very similar, except that the detergent and gel are spread throughout the body of the dead mouse via the circulatory system, rendering the major organs transparent within two or three days. A variation on the technique, known as PACT, can also be used to clarify specific organs instead of the whole body.

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[DISCOVERY.COM]
[CALTECH.EDU]

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