05 Apr Tridimensional Visualization and Analysis of Early Human Development
MedicalResearch.com Interview with:
Dr. Chedotal
Alain Chedotal, PhD
Group Leader, Institut de la Vision (Inserm/UPMC/CNRS), Paris and
Dr. Berlemont
Sylvain Berlemont, PhD
CEO & Founder of Keen Eye Technologies, Incubateur Institut de la Vision, Paris
MedicalResearch.com: What is the background for this study? What are the main findings?
Response: What was known about human embryo development was based on histological techniques developed at the beginning of the twentieth century and no significant progress had been made for about fifty years. A few years ago our team found a method allowing to perform immunostaining on whole-mouse embryos and adult mouse brains. Complete 3D images of the intact samples could be obtained after they were cleared with solvents and imaged with a light sheet microscope.
In this new study we have adapted this method to human embryos during the first trimester of gestation. We provide for the first time high-resolution 3D images of the developing peripheral nervous, muscular, vascular, cardiopulmonary, and urogenital systems. We found evidence for important in differences in the embryonic pattern of nerve branches between the right and left hands. We also present evidence for a differential vascularization of the male and female genital tracts concomitant with sex determination.
MedicalResearch.com: What should readers take away from your report?
Response: Our work paves the way for a cellular and molecular reference atlas of human cells, which will be of paramount importance to understanding human development in health and disease. We should be able to map all cells in the developing human and therefore understand how organs develop. We wanted to share these unique scientific data to the entire research community and decided to establish with Keen eye a database in which all our data would be freely available. Scientists can more than 1.5 million 3D sections of various human embryos and fetal organs through the Keen Eye platform, with interactive visualization features and multi-criteria research, organ by organ. This will foster international collaborations and accelerate the understanding of human development.
MedicalResearch.com: What recommendations do you have for future research as a result of this study?
Response: In the future, we would like other labs to be able to contribute to the bank, with their own images and make it a repository for human embryo data. The collaborative aspect of the platform and data-sharing are major issues for the scientific community. This is particularly essential for human resources that are very rare and precious.
MedicalResearch.com: Is there anything else you would like to add?
Response: The time required to manually trace individual nerve is currently one of the main bottleneck, considering the amount of data to annotate. We have good hopes the automated tracing algorithm Keen Eye is currently developing will help in that endeavor. Having a 3D viewer would also be a plus.
MedicalResearch.com: Thank you for your contribution to the MedicalResearch.com community.
Citation:
Tridimensional Visualization and Analysis of Early Human Development
Morgane Belle,David Godefroy,Gérard Couly,Samuel A. Malone,
Francis Collier,Paolo Giacobini,Alain Chédotal
CELL Published: March 23, 2017
DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.cell.2017.03.008
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Last Updated on April 5, 2017 by Marie Benz MD FAAD