A Novel Pancreatic Imaging Window for Stabilized Longitudinal <i>In Vivo</i> Observation of Pancreatic Islets in Murine Model

Abstract

Longitudinal imaging of murine pancreas is technically challenging due to the mechanical softness of the tissue influenced by peristalsis. Here, we report a novel pancreatic imaging window for long-term stabilized cellular-level observation of the islets in the pancreas in vivo. By spatially separating the pancreas from the bowel movement and physiologic respiration with a metal plate integrated in the imaging window, we successfully tracked the pancreatic islets up to three weeks and visualized the dumbbellshape transformation from the single islet. This window can be a useful tool for long-term cellular-level visualization of the microstructure in the pancreas.