title: Microscopic optical projection tomography in vivo.
abstract: We describe a versatile optical projection tomography system for rapid three-dimensional imaging of microscopic specimens in vivo. Our tomographic setup eliminates the in xy and z strongly asymmetric resolution, resulting from optical sectioning in conventional confocal microscopy. It allows for robust, high resolution fluorescence as well as absorption imaging of live transparent invertebrate animals such as C. elegans. This system offers considerable advantages over currently available methods when imaging dynamic developmental processes and animal ageing; it permits monitoring of spatio-temporal gene expression and anatomical alterations with single-cell resolution, it utilizes both fluorescence and absorption as a source of contrast, and is easily adaptable for a range of small model organisms.
authors.affiliation: Institute of Molecular Biology and Biotechnology, Foundation for Research and Technology-Hellas, Crete, Greece.
authors.forename: Matthias
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rieckher
authors.forename: Udo Jochen
authors.initials: UJ
authors.lastname: Birk
authors.forename: Heiko
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Meyer
authors.forename: Jorge
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Ripoll
authors.forename: Nektarios
authors.initials: N
authors.lastname: Tavernarakis
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D017173:Caenorhabditis elegans; D004867:Equipment Design; D005453:Fluorescence; D020869:Gene Expression Profiling; D005786:Gene Expression Regulation; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins / Q000378:metabolism; D007091:Image Processing, Computer-Assisted; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000379:methods; D008027:Light; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal / Q000379:methods*; D013997:Time Factors; D041622:Tomography, Optical / Q000295:instrumentation* / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins