Imaging the Developing Heart: Synchronized Timelapse Microscopy During Developmental Changes

TL;DR

This paper presents a novel imaging method combining prospective and retrospective optical gating to produce long-term, phase-locked time-lapse videos of heart development, overcoming shape changes that hinder previous techniques.

Contribution

The authors introduce an integrated optical gating approach enabling detailed, phase-locked imaging of the developing heart during complex shape-changing phases like heart looping.

Findings

Successful long-term, phase-locked heart imaging during development

Overcomes limitations of previous prospective gating methods

Highlights importance of tailored data collection for biological analysis

Abstract

How do you use imaging to analyse the development of the heart, which not only changes shape but also undergoes constant, high-speed, quasi-periodic changes? We have integrated ideas from prospective and retrospective optical gating to capture long-term, phase-locked developmental time-lapse videos. In this paper we demonstrate the success of this approach over a key developmental time period: heart looping, where large changes in heart shape prevent previous prospective gating approaches from capturing phase-locked videos. We use the comparison with other approaches to in vivo heart imaging to highlight the importance of collecting the most appropriate data for the biological question.