Taking advantage of intravital microscopy, the method presented here enables real-time visualization of intestinal epithelial cell shedding in living animals. Therefore, topically stained intestinal mucosa (acriflavine and rhodamineB-dextran) of anesthetized mice is imaged up to single-cell resolution using confocal microscopy.
Martínez-Sánchez, L. D., Pradhan, R., Ngo, P. A., Erkert, L., Becker, L. S., Watson, A. J., Atreya, I., Neurath, M. F., López-Posadas, R. An Intravital Microscopy-Based Approach to Assess Intestinal Permeability and Epithelial Cell Shedding Performance. J. Vis. Exp. (166), e60790, doi:10.3791/60790 (2020).