Real-time observation of organoids possible through holotomography

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Organoids, which are three-dimensional miniature organs that mimic the structure and function of human organs, play an essential role in disease research and drug development. A Korean research team has managed to overcome the limitations of existing imaging technologies and observe living organoids in real time and at high resolution.

KAIST (represented by President Kwang Hyung Lee) announced on October 14 that the research team of Professor YongKeun Park from the Department of Physics in collaboration with the Genome Editing Research Center (Director Bon-Kyoung Koo) of the Institute for Basic Science (IBS President Thu -Young Noh) and Tomocube Inc. have developed imaging technology that uses holotomography to observe living small intestinal organoids in real time and at high resolution.

Existing imaging techniques have had difficulty observing living organoids at high resolution for extended periods of time and often required additional treatments such as fluorescent staining.

To address these issues, the research team introduced holotomography technology, which provides high-resolution images without the need for fluorescent staining and enables long-term observation of dynamic changes in real time without causing cell damage.

The team validated this technology using small intestinal organoids from experimental mice and were able to observe various cellular structures inside the organoids in detail. Using holotomography, they also recorded dynamic changes such as growth processes, cell division and cell death in real time.

In addition, the technology made it possible to precisely analyze the organoids’ responses to drug treatments, thereby verifying the survival of the cells.

The researchers believe this breakthrough will open new horizons in organoid research and enable greater use of organoids in drug development, personalized medicine and regenerative medicine.

Future research is expected to more accurately recreate the in vivo environment of organoids and significantly contribute to a more detailed understanding of various life phenomena at the cellular level through more precise 3D imaging.

Dr. Mahn Jae Lee, a graduate of KAIST’s Graduate School of Medical Science and Engineering, currently at Chungnam National University Hospital and first author of the paper, commented: “This research represents a new imaging technology that surpasses previous limitations and is expected to do so.” make important contributions to disease modeling, personalized treatments and drug development research using organoids.”

Reference: Lee MJ, Lee J, Ha J, et al. Long-term three-dimensional high-resolution imaging of live, unlabeled small intestinal organoids using low-coherence holotomography. Exp Mol Med. 2024. doi: 10.1038/s12276-024-01312-0

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