Studying mammalian development with optical coherence tomography

The mouse provides an excellent model for studying mammalian development and disease because of the resemblance to humans, potential for genetic manipulation, and rapid generation time. However, mammalian embryos develop in utero, which limits the ability to observe development with high-resolution. In this study, we adopted Swept Source Optical Coherence Tomography (SS-OCT) for live visualization of mouse embryos during different stages of the development. We demonstrate capability of OCT as a novel methodology for live imaging of mouse embryos both in culture and through the uterine wall.