The immune cell distribution in mouse asthma lung

Asthma is a common inflammatory lung disease that affects people worldwide. It is associated with complex interactions between innate and adaptive immune cells as well as structural cells. The identification of diverse immune cell types and their spatial distribution will provide a comprehensive understanding of asthma pathogenesis and help design potential therapeutic approaches. In my project, I am developing an imaging technology combining tissue optical clearing, light-sheet fluorescence microscopy, and confocal microscopy that could visualize the entire asthma lung at a tissue scale with cellular resolution. Here is a representative cross-sectional image from a whole 3D mouse asthma lung. Our technology allows a label-free visualization of lung airways, alveoli, and vasculature with lung auto-fluorescence (green) as well as CD45 antibody staining on immune cells (red). It is evident that an elevated number of immune cells were recruited in the asthma lung compared to the healthy control lung. Interestingly, most immune cells (red/yellow) were distributed along the airways and vessels and with a lesser amount located in the alveolar region. This image depicts a clear lung architecture and the immune cell distribution in the mouse asthma lung.