Small, Transparent and Sometimes Glowing -- Meet the Mice and Their Visible Nerve Cells That Science Created

Glow in the dark mice are part of a new method scientists can use to image organ interactions, cell structures of tissue, and nerve and blood cells in whole animals.

German researchers developed a method to create rodents that are up to 65 percent smaller and transparent. Fluorescent proteins inside the mice glow under illumination, allowing scientists to have a complete view of the chosen system as opposed to the partial view offered by the more traditional method of slicing up samples.

Scientists involved in this research showed their creativity and sense of humor by naming the project "ultimate DISCO," or uDISCO for short. Methodology for the creation of the mice was published Monday in Nature Methods.

"Now...we can look into the wiring of the whole mouse in high resolution," coauthor of the paper and a neuroscientist at Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich Ali Ertürk said in a statement.

A complete, high resolution view can show how problems in one area can affect the entire system. Previous methods such as sample slices viewed under a microscope and MRIs give a low resolution and often incomplete view.

"This is usually sufficient to study tumor cells or inflammatory cells because they are small circles...but neurons are not like this. You don't see the entire picture, you are cutting the wires," Ertürk continued.

The rodents are rendered small and transparent by soaking them in a solution that rids their tissue of water and lipids. The solution also preserves fluorescent proteins in the body for months, an important improvement from past methods that is necessary for imaging.

More of the rodent can be viewed under a microscope, thanks to the smaller size. Comparisons of systems in healthy mice and mice with diseases are now possible.

The team is hoping use uDisco to image an entire rodent brain and then move on to image an entire human brain. Implications for sufferers of brain injuries and nervous system diseases are staggering.