Figure 1.

Visualizing and quantifying mucus barrier functions on fecal sections.A, processing scheme for feces for mucus analysis in situ. B, tiled cross-section of healthy human feces (upper) and mouse feces (lower) dual stained with FISH probes (red) and a rabbit polyclonal antibody targeting human MUC2 (see Experimental procedures; green). C, quantitative imaging of mucus thickness along the distance of fecal periphery. D, Violin plot of total mucus thickness of four independent human and mouse samples. E, confocal imaging of MUC2:FISH-stained sections. Right of image: Density plots of mucus thickness and microbial distance to mucus bottom showing microbial penetration into the mucus.