In this image, we capture the natural beauty of tissue autofluorescence: revealing rich information about tissue structure and form, even before applying the complex molecular techniques normally used by researchers.

When researchers image tissues, they typically use chemical reagents to highlight particular molecules and cell types present in the tissue, amplify products of specific pathways and processes, etc. However, what almost always goes overlooked is the information contained in the tissue itself - the signals and information encoded in the autofluorescence of the tissue’s natural molecules and cells. By simply looking at an unstained section of mouse small intestine and allowing its native structure to shine, we recognized that tissue autofluorescence is sufficient to distinguish biologically-meaningful intestinal structures and reveal the spatial distribution of tissue-scale functions.