In a fascinating study published in September 2024, Stanford University researchers have developed a method to make the skin of live mice temporarily transparent using a common food dye, FD&C Yellow 5 (tartrazine). This breakthrough allows scientists to observe internal organs, blood vessels, and neurons in real-time without invasive surgery.
Tartrazine, a dye commonly used in foods and cosmetics, absorbs light in the near-ultraviolet and blue spectrum, enabling deeper penetration of red and orange light through the skin. This drastically reduces light scattering, making the skin appear transparent. Researchers applied the dye to various parts of the mice, such as the abdomen and skull, and successfully observed processes like gut motility and blood flow in cerebral vessels.
This method holds great potential for non-invasive research on live animals, offering new ways to study diseases such as irritable bowel syndrome (IBS) and even neurological functions. The transparency is temporary, as the effect reverses once the dye is washed off, making it an ethical and repeatable procedure.
The development could extend beyond mice, as the technique may be adaptable for other animals, significantly enhancing biological research without the need for surgical intervention. The study’s potential to revolutionize medical imaging and research on deep-seated tissues is vast, as it may enable more detailed imaging, like multiphoton imaging of a whole mouse brain or detecting tumors beneath thick tissues using optical coherence technology.
Image Credit : Guosong Hong/Stanford University &
Stanford University
