TY - JOUR TI - Optical Clearing and Index Matching of Tissue Samples for High-resolution Fluorescence Imaging Using SeeDB2 AU - Ke, Meng-Tsen AU - Imai, Takeshi VL - 8 IS - 20 PY - 2018 DA - 2018/10/20 SP - e3046 C1 - Bio-protocol 2018;8:e3046 DO - 10.21769/BioProtoc.3046 UR - https://doi.org/10.21769/BioProtoc.3046 AB - Tissue clearing techniques are useful for large-scale three-dimensional fluorescence imaging of thick tissues. However, high-resolution imaging deep inside tissues has been challenging, as it is extremely sensitive to light scattering and spherical aberrations. Here, we present a water-based optical clearing and mounting media, SeeDB2, which is designed for high numerical aperture (NA) objective lenses with oil or glycerol immersion. Using quick and simple soaking procedures, the refractive indices of samples can be matched either to that of immersion oil (1.52) or glycerol (1.46), thus minimizing light scattering and spherical aberrations. Fine morphology and various fluorescent proteins are highly preserved during the clearing and imaging process. Our method is useful for the three-dimensional fluorescence imaging of neuronal circuitry at synaptic resolution using confocal and super-resolution microscopy. SeeDB2 is also useful as a mounting media for the super-resolution imaging of fluorescent proteins. KW - Tissue clearing KW - Fluorescence imaging KW - Confocal imaging KW - Super-resolution imaging KW - Connectome KW - SeeDB2 JF - Bio-protocol SN - 2331-8325 PB - Bio-protocol LLC. BIO101 - False