PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Guang Li
AU  - Sharon E. Fox
AU  - Brian Summa
AU  - Carola Wenk
AU  - Aibek Akmatbekov
AU  - Jack L. Harbert
AU  - Richard S. Vander Heide
AU  - J. Quincy Brown
TI  - Multiscale 3-dimensional pathology findings of COVID-19 diseased lung using high-resolution cleared tissue microscopy
AID  - 10.1101/2020.04.11.037473
DP  - 2020 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2020.04.11.037473
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/04/17/2020.04.11.037473.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2020/04/17/2020.04.11.037473.full
AB  - The study of pulmonary samples from individuals who have died as a direct result of COVID-19 infection is vital to our understanding of the pathogenesis of this disease. Histopathologic studies of lung tissue from autopsy of patients with COVID-19 specific mortality are only just emerging. All existing reports have relied on traditional 2-dimensional slide-based histological methods for specimen preparation. However, emerging methods for high-resolution, massively multiscale imaging of tissue microstructure using fluorescence labeling and tissue clearing methods enable the acquisition of tissue histology in 3-dimensions, that could open new insights into the nature of SARS-Cov-2 infection and COVID-19 disease processes. In this article, we present the first 3-dimensional images of lung autopsy tissues taken from a COVID-19 patient, including 3D “virtual histology” of cubic-millimeter volumes of the diseased lung, providing unique insights into disease processes contributing to mortality that could inform frontline treatment decisions.Competing Interest StatementJQB is a co-founder and shareholder in Instapath Inc. No other authors declare competing interests.