Abstract
The study of immune cell recruitment and function in tissues has been a very active field over the last two decades. Neutrophils are among the first immune cells to reach the site of inflammation and to participate in the innate immune response during infection or tissue damage. So far, neutrophil migration has been successfully visualized using various in vitro experimental systems based on uniform stimulation, or confined migration under agarose, or micro-fluidic channels. However, these models do not recapitulate the complex microenvironment that neutrophils encounter in vivo. The development of multiphoton microscopy (MPM)-based techniques, such as intravital subcellular microscopy (ISMic), offer a unique tool to visualize and investigate neutrophil dynamics at subcellular resolutions under physiological conditions. In particular, the ear of a live anesthetized mouse provides an experimental advantage to follow neutrophil interstitial migration in real-time due to its ease of accessibility and lack of surgical exposure. ISMic provides the optical resolution, speed, and depth of acquisition necessary to track both cellular and, more importantly, subcellular processes in 3D over time (4D). Moreover, multi-modal imaging of the interstitial microenvironment (i.e., blood vessels, resident cells, extracellular matrix) can be readily accomplished using a combination of transgenic mice expressing select fluorescent markers, exogenous labeling via fluorescent probes, tissue intrinsic fluorescence, and second/third harmonic generated signals. This protocol describes 1) the preparation of neutrophils for adoptive transfer into the mouse ear, 2) different settings for optimal sub-cellular imaging, 3) strategies to minimize motion artifacts while maintaining a physiological response, 4) examples of membrane remodeling observed in neutrophils using ISMic, and 5) a workflow for the quantitative analysis of membrane remodeling in migrating neutrophils in vivo.