Tissue clearing to examine tumour complexity in three dimensions

The visualization of whole organs and organisms through tissue clearing and fluorescence volumetric imaging has revolutionized the way we look at biological samples. Its application to solid tumours is changing our perception of tumour architecture, revealing signalling networks and cell interactions critical in tumour progression, and provides a powerful new strategy for cancer diagnostics. This Review introduces the latest advances in tissue clearing and three-dimensional imaging, examines the challenges in clearing epithelia — the tissue of origin of most malignancies — and discusses the insights that tissue clearing has brought to cancer research, as well as the prospective applications to experimental and clinical oncology. This Review introduces the latest advances in tissue clearing and three-dimensional imaging as applied to epithelial tissues, and explains how such techniques can improve both our understanding of tumour biology and cancer diagnostics.