X-Clarity tissue clearing allows large, intact samples to be made transparent for fluorescent labelling and microscopy. A problem that faces many people during imaging is the scattering of light through opaque or semi-opaque thick tissues by lipid membranes: the deeper you go, the less you see. A simple solution is to turn your sample transparent. X-Clarity tissue clearing allows large, intact samples to be made transparent for fluorescent labelling and microscopy. The X-Clarity system clears your biological sample in four steps: Hydrogel Infusion following fixation (24h) Tissue to hydrogel hybridisation (3h) Lipid removal in a designated cassette, after which you can immunostain your sample. Equilibration of the sample in mounting solution to make it fully transparent. Image The Facility offers the following cassettes for lipid removal: Very Large sample (two rat brain or several adult zebrafish). Well size: 35x53x20mm Large samples the size of a mouse brain. Well size: 16.8x16.8x20m 48 small samples, the size of a E11 mouse embryo. Well size: 6.5x6.5x10mm 192 small samples, the size of a 4 days old zebrafish embryo. Well size: 3x3x10mm Duration of lipid removal, immunostaining, and equilibration in mounting medium thereafter, is sample dependent: the larger and more lipid rich, the longer it takes. Clearing is paid by cassette and by clearing time (in hours). For small samples, such as tissue slices or organoids, other methods and reagents are available. Talk to the facility staff for more information. Location: IRR Imaging Hub Contact IRR.Imaging@ed.ac.uk for access This article was published on 2024-07-08
