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} .category-border-color { border-color: #009589; } .category-text-color { color: #009589; } .the-content a, .share-panel a { color: #009589!important; } .share-panel a:hover { border-color: #009589!important; } .author-byline__info a { color: #009589!important; } .entry-content blockquote::before { color: #009589!important; } .entry-content figure { color: #009589!important; } </style> <div class="wrapper"> <div class="row single-content"> <div class="col-md-1 share-sticky"> <ul class="share-panel"> <li> <a href="https://www.facebook.com/sharer/sharer.php?u=https://physicsworld.com/a/light-absorbing-dye-turns-skin-of-a-live-mouse-transparent/" aria-label="Share on Facebook"><i class="fa fa-facebook" aria-hidden="true"></i></a> </li> <li> <a href="https://twitter.com/intent/tweet?text=The technique could be used to observe a wide range of deep-seated biological structures and activity https://physicsworld.com/a/light-absorbing-dye-turns-skin-of-a-live-mouse-transparent/" aria-label="Share on Twitter"> <svg xmlns="http://www.w3.org/2000/svg" shape-rendering="geometricPrecision" text-rendering="geometricPrecision" image-rendering="optimizeQuality" fill-rule="evenodd" clip-rule="evenodd" viewBox="0 0 512 462.799"><path fill-rule="nonzero" fill="currentColor" d="M403.229 0h78.506L310.219 196.04 512 462.799H354.002L230.261 301.007 88.669 462.799h-78.56l183.455-209.683L0 0h161.999l111.856 147.88L403.229 0zm-27.556 415.805h43.505L138.363 44.527h-46.68l283.99 371.278z"/></svg> </a> </li> <li> <a href="https://www.linkedin.com/sharing/share-offsite/?url=https%3A%2F%2Fphysicsworld.com%2Fa%2Flight-absorbing-dye-turns-skin-of-a-live-mouse-transparent%2F" aria-label="Share on LinkedIn" rel="noopener"><i class="fa fa-linkedin" aria-hidden="true"></i></a> </li> <li> <a href="mailto:?subject=Physics%20World:%20Light-absorbing%20dye%20turns%20skin%20of%20a%20live%20mouse%20transparent&body=I%20thought%20you%20might%20be%20interested%20in%20this%20Physics%20World%20article:%20%20https://physicsworld.com/a/light-absorbing-dye-turns-skin-of-a-live-mouse-transparent/" aria-label="Share by Email"><i class="fa fa-envelope-o" aria-hidden="true"></i></a> </li> <li> <a href="#" onclick="window.print();return false;"><i class="fa fa-print" aria-hidden="true"></i></a> </li>  </ul> </div> <div class="col-md-7 col-sm-7 the-content equalize-sidebar"> <ul class="hero-top-banner__category"> <li><a href="https://physicsworld.com/c/biophysics-bioengineering/" style="color: #009589;">Biophysics and bioengineering</a></li> <li><a href="https://physicsworld.com/l/research-updates/" style="color: #009589;">Research update</a></li> </ul> <div class="single-header single-sponsored-header"> <h1 class="single-header__heading">Light-absorbing dye turns skin of a live mouse transparent</h1> <div class="single-header__meta"> 24 Sep 2024 <a href="https://physicsworld.com/author/belle-dume/">Isabelle Dumé</a> </div> </div> <article id="post-116964" class="post-116964 post type-post status-publish format-standard has-post-thumbnail hentry category-biophysics-bioengineering category-imaging article-type-research-updates"> <div class="entry-content">    <figure class="thumbnail" style="color: #009589"> <a href="https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Low-Res_Zihao-Ou-Lab-1a.jpg" data-fancybox data-src="https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Low-Res_Zihao-Ou-Lab-1a.jpg" data-caption="<strong>Achieving optical transparency</strong> First author Zihao Ou holds a vial of the common yellow food dye tartrazine in solution. By applying a mixture of water and tartrazine, Ou and colleagues made the skin on the skulls and abdomens of live mice transparent. (Courtesy: University of Texas at Dallas)"> <img src="https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Low-Res_Zihao-Ou-Lab-1a-635x424.jpg" srcset=" https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Low-Res_Zihao-Ou-Lab-1a.jpg 700w, https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/09/Low-Res_Zihao-Ou-Lab-1a-635x424.jpg 635w" sizes="(max-width: 768px) 100vw, 635w" alt="Zihao Ou holds a vial of the common yellow food dye tartrazine in solution" title="Achieving optical transparency" width="635" height="424" /> </a> <script type="application/json"> "\u003Cstrong\u003EAchieving optical transparency\u003C\/strong\u003E First author Zihao Ou holds a vial of the common yellow food dye tartrazine in solution. By applying a mixture of water and tartrazine, Ou and colleagues made the skin on the skulls and abdomens of live mice transparent. (Courtesy: University of Texas at Dallas)" </script> <figcaption><strong>Achieving optical transparency</strong> First author Zihao Ou holds a vial of the common yellow food dye tartrazine in solution. By applying a mixture of water and tartrazine, Ou and colleagues made the skin on the skulls and abdomens of live mice transparent. (Courtesy: University of Texas at Dallas)</figcaption> </figure> <p>One of the difficulties when trying to image biological tissue using optical techniques is that tissue scatters light, which makes it opaque. This scattering occurs because the different components of tissue, such as water and lipids, have different refractive indices, and it limits the depth at which light can penetrate.</p> <p>A team of researchers at Stanford University in the US has now found that a common water-soluble yellow dye (among several other dye molecules) that strongly absorbs near-ultraviolet and blue light can help make biological tissue transparent in just a few minutes, thus allowing light to penetrate more deeply. In tests on mice skin, muscle and connective tissue, the team used the technique to observe a wide range of deep-seated structures and biological activity.</p> <p>In their work, the research team – led by <a href="https://profiles.utdallas.edu/zihao.ou" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Zihao Ou</a> (now at The University of Texas at Dallas), <a href="https://mse.stanford.edu/people/mark-brongersma" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Mark Brongersma</a> and <a href="https://mse.stanford.edu/people/guosong-hong" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Guosong Hong</a> – rubbed the common food dye tartrazine, which is yellow/red in colour, onto the abdomen, scalp and hindlimbs of live mice. By absorbing light in the blue part of the spectrum, the dye altered the refractive index of the water in the treated areas at red-light wavelengths, such that it more closely matched that of lipids in this part of the spectrum. This effectively reduced the refractive-index contrast between the water and the lipids and allowed the biological tissue to appear more transparent at this wavelength, albeit tinged with red.</p> <span class="mpu align-right" aria-hidden="true"><div id='div-gpt-ad-3759129-1'class="advert" > <script> googletag.cmd.push(function() { googletag.display('div-gpt-ad-3759129-1'); }); </script> </div></span> <p>In this way, the researchers were able to visualize internal organs, such as the liver, small intestine and bladder, through the skin without requiring any surgery. They were even able to observe fluorescent protein-labelled enteric neurons in the abdomen and monitor the movements of these nerve cells. This enabled them to generate maps showing different movement patterns in the gut during digestion. They were also able to visualize blood flow in the rodents’ brains and the fine structure of muscle sarcomere fibres in their hind limbs.</p> <h3>Reversible effect</h3> <p>The skin becomes transparent in just a few minutes and the effect can be reversed by simply rinsing off the dye.</p> <p>So far, this “optical clearing” study has only been conducted on animals. But if extended to humans, it could offer a variety of benefits in biology, diagnostics and even cosmetics, says Hong. Indeed, the technique could help make some types of invasive biopsies a thing of the past.</p> <p>“For example, doctors might be able to diagnose deep-seated tumours by simply examining a person’s tissue without the need for invasive surgical removal. It could potentially make blood draws less painful by helping phlebotomists easily locate veins under the skin and could also enhance procedures like laser tattoo removal by allowing more precise targeting of the pigment beneath the skin,” Hong explains. “If we could just look at what’s going on under the skin instead of cutting into it, or using radiation to get a less than clear look, we could change the way we see the human body.”</p> <p>Hong tells <em>Physics World</em> that the collaboration originated from a casual conversation he had with Brongersma, at a café on Stanford’s campus during the summer of 2021. “Mark’s lab specializes in nanophotonics while my lab focuses on new strategies for enhancing deep-tissue imaging of neural activity and light delivery for optogenetics. At the time, one of my graduate students, <a href="https://neuroscience.stanford.edu/people/nick-rommelfanger" target="_blank" rel="noopener">Nick Rommelfanger</a> (third author of the current paper), was working on applying the ‘Kramers-Kronig’ relations to investigate microwave–brain interactions. Meanwhile, my postdoc Zihao Ou (first author of this paper) had been systematically screening a variety of dye molecules to understand their interactions with light.”</p> <article class='editors-pick'> <a href='https://physicsworld.com/a/mouse-brain-imaging-reaches-record-breaking-resolution/'> <div class='editors-pick__image'> <div class='editors-pick__more'>Read more</div> <img decoding="async" width="151" height="90" src="https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CoronalTDI-151x90.jpg" class="attachment-list-image size-list-image wp-post-image" alt="MR imaging of the mouse brain" srcset="https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CoronalTDI-151x90.jpg 151w, https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CoronalTDI-211x125.jpg 211w, https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CoronalTDI-1024x608.jpg 1024w, https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CoronalTDI-317x188.jpg 317w, https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CoronalTDI-768x456.jpg 768w, https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CoronalTDI-673x400.jpg 673w, https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CoronalTDI-693x412.jpg 693w, https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CoronalTDI-690x410.jpg 690w, https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CoronalTDI-635x377.jpg 635w, https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CoronalTDI-332x197.jpg 332w, https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CoronalTDI-257x153.jpg 257w, https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CoronalTDI-300x178.jpg 300w, https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CoronalTDI-128x76.jpg 128w, https://physicsworld.com/wp-content/uploads/2023/04/CoronalTDI.jpg 1200w" sizes="(max-width: 151px) 100vw, 151px" /> </div> <h4 class='editors-pick__title'><p>Mouse brain imaging reaches record-breaking resolution</p> </h4> </a> </article> <p>Tartrazine emerged as the leading candidate, says Hong. “This dye showed intense absorption in the near-ultraviolet/blue spectrum (and thus strong enhancement of refractive index in the red spectrum), minimal absorption beyond 600 nm, high water solubility and excellent biocompatibility, as it is an FD&C-approved food dye.”</p> <p>“We realized that the Kramers-Kronig relations could be applied to the resonance absorption of dye molecules, which led me to ask Mark about the feasibility of matching the refractive index in biological tissues, with the aim of reducing light scattering,” Hong explains. “Over the past three years, both our labs have had numerous productive discussions, with exciting results far exceeding our initial expectations.”</p> <p>The researchers say they are now focusing on identifying other dye molecules with greater efficiency in achieving tissue transparency. “Additionally, we are exploring methods for cells to express intensely absorbing molecules endogenously, enabling genetically encoded tissue transparency in live animals,” reveals Hong.</p> <p>The study is detailed in <a href="https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/science.adm6869" target="_blank" rel="noopener"><em>Science</em></a>.</p> <div class="wrapper clearfix"> <div class="ajax__container fullwidth-newsletter-sign-up events-register-sign-up" style="border-color: #009589"> <form method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data" data-ajax="register" data-dest=".fullwidth-newsletter-sign-up"> <input type="hidden" name="signup" value="1"> <input type="hidden" name="shortform" value="1"> <input type="hidden" name="url" value="https://physicsworld.com/a/light-absorbing-dye-turns-skin-of-a-live-mouse-transparent"> <div class="fullwidth-newsletter-sign-up__email"> <div class="gf_browser_chrome gform_wrapper" id="gform_wrapper_1"> <div class="gform_heading"> <h3 class="gform_title">Want to read more?</h3> <span class="gform_description">Registration is free, quick and easy</span> <p><strong>Note:</strong> The verification e-mail to complete your account registration should arrive immediately. 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