Whole-Mount Adult Ear Skin Imaging Reveals Defective Neuro-Vascular Branching Morphogenesis in Obese and Type 2 Diabetic Mouse Models.

Tomoko Yamazaki, Earle A. Chiles Research Institute, Robert W. Franz Cancer Center, Providence Portland Medical Center, Portland, OR, 97213, USA.
Wenling Li
Ling Yang
Ping Li
Haiming Cao
Sei-Ichiro Motegi
Mark C Udey
Elise Bernhard
Takahisa Nakamura
Yoh-Suke Mukouyama

Abstract

Obesity and type 2 diabetes are frequently associated with peripheral neuropathy. Though there are multiple methods for diagnosis and analysis of morphological changes of peripheral nerves and blood vessels, three-dimensional high-resolution imaging is necessary to appreciate the pathogenesis with an anatomically recognizable branching morphogenesis and patterning. Here we established a novel technique for whole-mount imaging of adult mouse ear skin to visualize branching morphogenesis and patterning of peripheral nerves and blood vessels. Whole-mount immunostaining of adult mouse ear skin showed that peripheral sensory and sympathetic nerves align with large-diameter blood vessels. Diet-induced obesity (DIO) mice exhibit defective vascular smooth muscle cells (VSMCs) coverage, while there is no significant change in the amount of peripheral nerves. The leptin receptor-deficient db/db mice, a severe obese and type 2 diabetic mouse model, exhibit defective VSMC coverage and a large increase in the amount of smaller-diameter nerve bundles with myelin sheath and unmyelinated nerve fibers. Interestingly, an increase in the amount of myeloid immune cells was observed in the DIO but not db/db mouse skin. These data suggest that our whole-mount imaging method enables us to investigate the neuro-vascular and neuro-immune phenotypes in the animal models of obesity and diabetes.