Live-cell imaging goes WHOLISTIC

Coordinated cellular communication is at the basis of organismal physiology, but approaches for monitoring cellular dynamics across multiple tissues and organs simultaneously remain limited. Writing in Nature, Ruetten and colleagues describe WHOLISTIC (Whole-Organism Live-Imaging System for Recording Tissue and Intracellular Activity), an imaging platform that captures cellular activities across the entire vertebrate body at single-cell resolution.

WHOLISTIC combines the expression of genetically encoded calcium sensors with high-speed volumetric fluorescence imaging, computational motion correction and tissue-scale activity analysis in transparent vertebrate models. The authors developed transgenic zebrafish that express a calcium indicator in nearly all cell types and demonstrated the applicability of the approach in adult Danionella cerebrum. Whole-body expansion microscopy and functional imaging enabled the molecular and anatomical characterization of cell populations.

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