Description
Despite widespread adoption of tissue clearing techniques in recent years, poor access to suitable light-sheet fluorescence microscopes remains a major obstacle for biomedical end-users. Here, we present descSPIM (desktop- equipped SPIM for cleared specimens), a low-cost ($20,000–50,000), low- expertise (one-day installation by a non-expert), yet practical do-it-yourself light-sheet microscope as a solution for this bottleneck. Even the most fundamental configuration of descSPIM enables multi-color imaging of whole mouse brains and a cancer cell line-derived xenograft tumor mass for the visualization of neurocircuitry, assessment of drug distribution, and pathological examination by false-colored hematoxylin and eosin staining in a three- dimensional manner. Academically open-sourced (https://github.com/dbsb- juntendo/descSPIM), descSPIM allows routine three-dimensional imaging of cleared samples in minutes. Thus, the dissemination of descSPIM will accelerate biomedical discoveries driven by tissue clearing technologies.