enGLOW 3D microscopy of the enteric nervous system in cleared human and mouse gut

The enteric nervous system (ENS) is involved in many gastrointestinal (GI) disorders and our understanding of how gut morphology is disrupted remains limited due to a lack of tools to investigate tissues at the organ scale. Here we present enGLOW (enteric network Gastrointestinal Lightsheet Optical Workflow), a workflow customized for high spatial-resolution investigation of the ENS in gastrointestinal samples. We demonstrate how enGLOW can extract quantitative data in cubic centimeters of intact tissue. In a single dataset, we quantify intestinal wall metrics in autofluorescence and labeled ENS-associated cells in centimeter-long segments of tissue using three-dimensional (3D) segmentation. With virtual tissue flattening, we separate neuronal plexuses in mouse and human samples, and observe variations in mucosal morphology and labeled signal distribution in genetically modified animals. As an optimized ready-to-use workflow, enGLOW expands the gut research toolbox to enable understanding of enteric network morphology at scales that encompass functional networks.