Whole-brain vasculature reconstruction at the single capillary level

Di Giovanna, A. P., Tibo, A., Silvestri, L., Müllenbroich, M. C. , Costantini, I., Allegra Mascaro, A. L., Sacconi, L., Frasconi, P. and Pavone, F. S. (2018) Whole-brain vasculature reconstruction at the single capillary level. Scientific Reports, 8, 12573. (doi: 10.1038/s41598-018-30533-3) (PMID:30135559) (PMCID:PMC6105658)

Abstract

The distinct organization of the brain’s vascular network ensures that it is adequately supplied with oxygen and nutrients. However, despite this fundamental role, a detailed reconstruction of the brain-wide vasculature at the capillary level remains elusive, due to insufficient image quality using the best available techniques. Here, we demonstrate a novel approach that improves vascular demarcation by combining CLARITY with a vascular staining approach that can fill the entire blood vessel lumen and imaging with light-sheet fluorescence microscopy. This method significantly improves image contrast, particularly in depth, thereby allowing reliable application of automatic segmentation algorithms, which play an increasingly important role in high-throughput imaging of the terabyte-sized datasets now routinely produced. Furthermore, our novel method is compatible with endogenous fluorescence, thus allowing simultaneous investigations of vasculature and genetically targeted neurons. We believe our new method will be valuable for future brain-wide investigations of the capillary network.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: This project received funding from the European Union’s H2020 research and innovation programme under grant agreements No. 720270 (Human Brain Project) and 654148 (Laserlab-Europe), and from the EU programme H2020 EXCELLENT SCIENCE - European Research Council (ERC) under grant agreement ID n. 692943 (BrainBIT). The project have also been supported by the Italian Ministry for Education, University, and Research in the framework of the Flagship Project NanoMAX and of Eurobioimaging Italian Nodes (ESFRI research infrastructure), and by “Ente Cassa di Risparmio di Firenze” (private foundation).
• Status: Published
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Muellenbroich, Dr Caroline
• Authors: Di Giovanna, A. P., Tibo, A., Silvestri, L., Müllenbroich, M. C., Costantini, I., Allegra Mascaro, A. L., Sacconi, L., Frasconi, P., and Pavone, F. S.
• College/School: College of Science and Engineering > School of Physics and Astronomy
• Journal Name: Scientific Reports
• Publisher: Nature Research
• ISSN: 2045-2322
• ISSN (Online): 2045-2322
• Published Online: 22 August 2018
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © 2018 The Authors
• First Published: First published in Scientific Reports 8:12573
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons License

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