The ability to image inside the naturally-beating zebrafish heart is becoming increasingly attractive for developmental and functional biological investigations, but some form of synchronization is required in order to acquire consistent 3D datasets. We describe our real-time synchronized selective plane illumination microscope (SPIM), and show results including the non-invasive acquisition of time-resolved 3D fluorescence images ("4D" imaging) of the naturally-beating embryonic zebrafish heart. We will also describe the extension of this technique to synchronized optical intervention.

During the cardiac development, the cardiac wall and the blood flow actively interact with each other, and determine the biomechanical environment to which the embryonic heart exposes. Employing an ultrafast 1310nm-band dual-camera spectral domain optical coherence tomography (SDOCT), the radial strain rate of the myocardial wall can be extracted with high signal-to-noise ratio, at the same time the Doppler velocity of the blood flow can also be displayed. The ability to simultaneously characterize these two cardiac tissues provides a powerful approach to better understand the interaction between the cardiac wall and the blood flow, which is important to the investigation of cardiac development.

In this paper, we demonstrated the use of a spectral domain optical coherence tomography (OCT) in visualizing and quantifying changes in cardiac wall strain and blood-flow velocities under normal and altered hemodynamic conditions in chicken embryos at an early stage of development, focusing on the heart outflow tract (OFT). OCT imaging allowed in vivo evaluation strain and strain rate of the myocardium of the OFT through analyzing the periodic variation of the myocardial wall thickness. We found that alterations in hemodynamic conditions, through OFT banding, Changed strain and blood-flow velocities through the OFT as expected.

Ultrasound biomicroscopy (UBM) is ideally suited for phenotyping fetal mice for congenital heart disease (CHD), as imaging can be carried out noninvasively to provide both hemodynamic and structural information essential for CHD diagnosis. Using the UBM (Vevo 2100; 40Hz) in conjunction with the clinical ultrasound system (Acuson Sequioa C512; 15Hz), we developed a two-step screening protocol to scan thousands fetuses derived from ENU mutagenized pedigrees. A wide spectrum of CHD was detected by the UBM, which were subsequently confirmed with follow-up necropsy and histopathology examination with episcopic fluorescence image capture. CHD observed included outflow anomalies, left/right heart obstructive lesions, septal/valvular defects and cardiac situs anomalies. Meanwhile, various extracardiac defects were found, such as polydactyly, craniofacial defects, exencephaly, omphalocele，cleft palate, most of which were associated with cardiac defects. Our analyses showed the UBM was better at assessing cardiac structure and blood flow profiles, while conventional ultrasound allowed higher throughput low-resolution screening. Our study showed the integration of conventional clinical ultrasound imaging with the UBM for fetal mouse cardiovascular phenotyping can maximize the detection and recovery of CHD mutants.

Optical Projection Tomography (OPT) is a three dimensional imaging technique that is particularly suitable for studying millimeter sized biological samples and organisms. Similarly to x-ray computed tomography, OPT is based on the acquisition of a sequence of images taken through the sample at many angles (projections). Assuming the linearity of the optical absorption process, the projections are combined to reconstruct the 3-D volume of the sample, typically using a filtered back-projection algorithm. OPT has been applied to in-vivo imaging of zebrafish (Danio rerio). The instrument and the protocol for in vivo imaging of zebrafish embryos and juvenile specimens are described. Light scattering remains a challenge for in vivo OPT, especially when samples at the upper size limit, like zebrafish at the adult stage, are under study. We describe Time-Gated Optical Projection Tomography (TGOPT), a technique able to reconstruct adult zebrafish internal structures by counteracting the scattering effects through a fast time-gate. The time gating mechanism is based on non-linear optical upconversion of an infrared ultrashort laser pulse and allows the detection of quasi-ballistic photons within a 100 fs temporal gate. This results in a strong improvement in contrast and resolution with respect to conventional OPT. Artifacts in the reconstructed images are reduced as well. We show that TGOPT is suited for imaging the skeletal system and nervous structures of adult zebrafish.

Optical coherence tomography (OCT) is gaining popularity as live imaging tool for embryonic research in animal models. Recently we have demonstrated that OCT can be used for live imaging of cultured early mouse embryos (E7.5-E10) as well as later stage mouse embryos in utero (E12.5 to the end of gestation). Targeted delivery of signaling molecules, drugs, and cells is a powerful approach to study normal and abnormal development, and image guidance is highly important for such manipulations. Here we demonstrate that OCT can be used to guide microinjections of gold nanoshell suspensions in live mouse embryos. This approach can potentially be used for variety of applications such as guided injections of contrast agents, signaling molecules, pharmacological agents, cell transplantation and extraction, as well as other image-guided micromanipulations. Our studies also reveal novel potential for gold nanoshells in embryonic research.

Alcohol consumption during pregnancy can be severely damage to the brain development in fetuses. This study investigates the effects of maternal ethanol consumption on brain development in mice embryos. Pregnant mice at gestational day 12.5 were intragastrically gavaged with ethanol (3g/Kg bwt) twice daily for three consecutive days. On gestational day 14.5, fetuses were collected and fixed in 4% paraformaldehyde and imaged using a swept-source optical coherence tomography (SSOCT) system. 3D images of the mice embryo brain were obtained and the volumes of the left and right ventricles of the brain were measured. The average volumes of the left and the right volumes of 5 embryos each alcohol-exposed and control embryos were measured to be 0.35 and 0.15 mm³, respectively. The results suggest that the left and right ventricle volumes of brain are much larger in the alcohol-exposed embryos as compared to control embryos indicating alcohol-induced developmental delay.

We have developed a combined NLOM-OCM method using ultrashort sub-10-fs pulses to study cell lineages and their gene expression profiles in zebrafish. First, time-lapse NLOM is used to capture embryo morphology (broadly excited autofluorescence) and cell lineage dynamics (eGFP reporter). The embryo is then fixed and an in situ hybridization performed, depositing NBT/BCIP precipitate where a gene of interest is actively expressed. Combined NLOM-OCM is then used to capture the gene expression pattern with 3-D resolution and these two data sets acquired from the same embryo are merged using morphological landmarks. We have used this approach to study the dynamics of the wnt1 lineage at the midbrain-hindbrain boundary (MHB) in normal and in fgf8a(ace) morphant embryos. We show that with fgf8a knock-down, the MHB constriction begins to form but subsequent failure of the constriction causes the incorporation of a transient cerebellar structure into caudal tectum. Concomitantly, this morphological distortion in the dorsal MHB causes anterior displacement in a ventral subpopulation of the wnt1 lineage at the MHB. NLOM-OCM confirms the displaced wnt1 MHB lineage stops expressing the wnt1 reporter, and with further experiments we can investigate markers such as wnt4 or ascl1a, which have been shown to be expanded caudally in ace mutants, to understand the transformed molecular fate of this displaced tissue. We conclude this approach of co-registering dynamic lineage tracing and in situ hybridization data sets using morphological context will help shed light on developmental mechanisms by integrating established analysis techniques at the morphological, cellular, and molecular levels.

Freshly-harvested porcine oocytes are invested with cumulus granulosa cells in cumulus-oocyte complexes (COCs). The cumulus cell layer is usually too thick to image the living oocyte under a conventional microscope. Therefore, it is difficult to assess the oocyte viability. The low success rate of implantation is the main problem for in vitro fertilization. In this paper, we demonstrate our dynamic imaging technique called motility contrast imaging (MCI) that provides a non-invasive way to monitor the COCs before and after maturation. MCI shows a change of intracellular activity during oocyte maturation, and a measures dynamic contrast between the cumulus granulosa shell and the oocytes. MCI also shows difference in the spectral response between oocytes that were graded into quality classes. MCI is based on shortcoherence digital holography. It uses intracellular motility as the endogenous imaging contrast of living tissue. MCI presents a new approach for cumulus-oocyte complex assessment.

Investigating the spatial information of cellular processes in tissues during mouse embryo development is one of the major technical challenges in development biology. Many imaging methods are still limited to the volumes of tissue due to tissue opacity, light scattering and the availability of advanced imaging tools. For analyzing the mitotic spindle angle distribution in developing mouse airway epithelium, we determined spindle angles in mitotic epithelial cells on serial sections of whole airway of mouse embryonic lungs. We then developed a computational image analysis to obtain spindle angle distribution in three dimensional airway reconstructed from the data obtained from all serial sections. From this study, we were able to understand how mitotic spindle angles are distributed in a whole airway tube. This analysis provides a potentially fast, simple and inexpensive alternative method to quantitatively analyze cellular process at subcellular resolution. Furthermore, this analysis is not limited to the size of tissues, which allows to obtain three dimensional and high resolution information of cellular processes in cell populations deeper inside intact organs.

We present a birefringence analysis method based on polarization-sensitive swept-source optical coherence tomography (PS-SS-OCT) for distinguishing pearls. To cope with the round shape of general pearls, a rotation stage was used for the sample scanning. With the system, the birefringence of several cultured pearls including south sea, Akoya, freshwater cultured pearls, and imitation pearls are analyzed and compared. Interestingly, PS-SS-OCT surely shows well developed birefringence patterns of phase retardation and fast axis orientation with the cultured pearls, whereas the pattern does not appear in the imitation pearls. In addition, the intensity image can help to distinguish the cultured pearls. Therefore, PSSS-OCT enables a more accurate interpretation for identifying the cultured pearls from imitation pearls.

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