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Growing zebrafish heart imaged in 3D for first time
A time-lapse 3D video of a zebrafish heart growing over a day has been captured for the first time by a new microscope imaging technique. Researchers from the universities of
Glasgow and Edinburgh were able to record individual heart cells growing and dividing in the beating heart over 24 hours. It is hoped the work, published in Nature Communications, will give insight into how human hearts form, grow and heal. Te fluorescence time-lapse imaging
technique uses a thin sheet of laser light to build up sections into a full 3D image of the heart layer by layer. Te team combined this with real-time image analysis using visible light to control when to fire the lasers for imaging the heart.
While 3D images of a zebrafish beating
heart have been recorded in the past, a time-lapse video of the heart growing has not been possible until now. Dr Jonathan Taylor, of the University
of Glasgow’s School of Physics and Astronomy, explained: ‘Zebrafish embryos’ hearts beat three times a second, and this constant motion makes them incredibly challenging targets to image accurately in three dimensions. By the time you’ve taken an image of one layer of the heart, it has moved on to another part of its cardiac cycle. To add to the challenge, heart cells can be damaged by over-exposure to laser light that is needed for fluorescence imaging.’ Te team’s microscope uses visible light
4 IMAGING AND MACHINE VISION EUROPE DECEMBER 2019/JANUARY 2020
Dr Jonathan Taylor, University of Glasgow
to image the beating heart of the zebrafish through its transparent skin. By analysing these images, laser light can then be fired selectively at the heart to capture specific moments in its cycle. In this way, exposure to damaging laser
light is minimised allowing the scientists to image the heart over the course of a day without harming the fish. Zebrafish hearts are similar to those of
humans, making them useful in cardiac research. Te British Heart Foundation – one of the funders of the study – hope that the new method of visualising zebrafish hearts will provide scientists with valuable new insights into the cellular and subcellular processes which occur during the earliest stages of heart development.
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