Mapping Topography and Morphology of Calcitonin Gene-Related Peptide (CGRP) Axons To Whole Stomach Scaffold
Mabelle Lin 1 , Richard Christie 1 , Duyen Nguyen 2 , Ariege Bizanti 2 , Zixi Jack Cheng 2 , Peter Hunter 1
Auckland Bioengineering Institute 1, University of Central Florida 2
Abstract: Millions of people suffer from abdominal pain. However, nociceptive afferent axon innervation of the stomach is not well-studied. Here, we developed a workflow which uses confocal microscopy, Zeiss Imager microscopy, flat-mount tissue processing techniques to image the whole organ at single cell and axon scale, innervation tracing, and mapping the entire tracing to a 3D stomach scaffold in mice?. Clinical Relevance— For the first time, a complete topographical map of nociceptive innervation of the whole stomach is generated at a cell/axon resolution. This provides a means to study the morphology and topography for understanding innervation, and guiding pain treatments.
