Attack of the gastrointestinal tract--now in 3D

To investigate diseases of the gastrointestinal tract, physicians have been limited to endoscopy or histology. But scientists at Case Western Reserve School of Medicine in Cleveland, Ohio, are now using 3D-pattern stereomicroscopy to develop entire topographical views of the inside of the intestinal system, rather than two-dimensional visuals of individual sections of tissue or cell samples.

In findings published in Nature Communications, the scientists describe how 3D stereomicroscopy provide a more expansive and detailed picture that allowed them to identify distinct patterns related both to health and disease within those structures, which they could not see otherwise.

“The traditional, two-dimensional histology views do not tell us what is going on in the entire tissue. The precision of this 3D technology will allow us to visualize the location of lesions along the entire intestinal tract to learn the exact cause of the inflammation,” said senior author Fabio Cominelli, MD, chief of the Division of Gastroenterology and Liver Disease at Case Western Reserve University School of Medicine.

Dr. Cominelli assembled a team of investigators to focus research on inflammatory diseases of the digestive tract—particularly Crohn’s disease, inflammatory bowel disease, and ulcerative colitis. One of those team members, Alexander Rodriguez-Palacios, DVM, PhD, identified the novel way to use a stereomicroscope.

“Before, a lesion was just a lesion,” Dr. Rodriguez-Palacios said. “We found that these lesions had a particular configuration. Now we can tell the different kinds of lesions and patterns of lesions that make a difference in the disease. Nobody has ever done that before.”

The researchers set out to test the efficacy of this alternative approach by studying the inflammatory-diseased intestinal tracts of more than 800 mice from 16 strains of the animals. During the course of their study, the scientists saw distinct patterns of lesions develop in the different kinds of mice.

Using stereomicroscopy, the investigators found two mouse models that most resemble inflammatory bowel disease in humans. The SAMP mouse has cobblestone lesions typical of human Crohn’s disease, and the TNF mouse has enlarged and distorted intestinal villa typical of inflammatory bowel disease. The investigators aim to make informed predictions about how these inflammatory bowel diseases develop and progress in humans.

“We will use the 3D stereoscopy to study these mouse models extensively to understand what causes the disease in mice,” Dr. Cominelli said, “[and then] correlate that understanding to human patients, and then develop new therapies.”