Imaging of cellular dynamics from a whole organism to subcellular scale with self-driving, multiscale microscopy

Abstract

Most biological processes, from development to pathogenesis, span multiple time and length scales. While light-sheet fluorescence microscopy has become a fast and efficient method for imaging organisms, cells and subcellular dynamics, simultaneous observations across all these scales have remained challenging. Moreover, continuous high-resolution imaging inside living organisms has mostly been limited to a few hours, as regions of interest quickly move out of view due to sample movement and growth. Here, we present a self-driving, multiresolution light-sheet microscope platform controlled by custom Python-based software, to simultaneously observe and quantify subcellular dynamics in the context of entire organisms in vitro and in vivo over hours of imaging. We apply the platform to the study of developmental processes, cancer invasion and metastasis, and we provide quantitative multiscale analysis of immune–cancer cell interactions in zebrafish xenografts. A self-driving multiresolution light-sheet microscope enables the simultaneous observation and quantification of cellular and subcellular dynamics in the context of intact and developing organisms over many hours of imaging.