A Novel Clearing Method “TOMEI”
Abstract: Clearing techniques are essential for deep imaging by a microscope. “Scale” which is a clearing technique for animal brain triggers the race to develop next-generation clearing techniques for animal tissues. In the case of clearing techniques for plant tissues, several groups have published similar clearimg methods, however these methods took several days to weeks. We developed a rapidly clearing technique “TOMEI (Transparent plant Organ MEthod for Imaging)” which enables to clear plant samples within 6 hours completely and detect fluorescent protein signals at a depth of approximately 200 micrometers using confocal laser scanning microscopy. We showed that TOMEI could be applied for leaves, flower buds, roots, and root knots in A. thaliana and leaves in O. sativa.
Key words: Clearing technique, TDE, TOMEI, plant tissues