Technological advances in three-dimensional (3D) reconstruction techniques have previously enabled paradigm shifts in our understanding of human embryonic and fetal development. Light sheet fluorescence microscopy (LSFM) is a recently-developed technique that uses thin planes of light to optically section whole-mount cleared and immunolabeled biologic specimens. The advent of commercially-available light sheet microscopes has facilitated a new generation of research into protein localization and tissue dynamics at extremely high resolution. Our group has applied LSFM to study developing human fetal external genitalia, internal genitalia and kidneys. This review describes LSFM and presents our group's technique for preparing, clearing, immunostaining and imaging human fetal urogenital specimens. We then present light sheet images and videos of each element of the developing human urogenital system. To the extent of our knowledge, the work conducted by our laboratory represents the first description of a method for performing LSFM on the full human urogenital system during the embryonic and fetal periods.

三维（3D）重建技术的技术进步以前使我们对人类胚胎和胎儿发育的理解发生了范式转变。灯片荧光显微镜（LSFM）是一项最近开发的技术，该技术使用薄的光平面光学切片整个已清除和免疫标记的生物样本。商业上可用的光片显微镜的出现促进了以极高分辨率对蛋白质定位和组织动力学进行的新一代研究。我们的小组已将LSFM应用到研究人类胎儿外部生殖器，内部生殖器和肾脏的发育中。这篇综述描述了LSFM，并介绍了我们小组用于制备，清除，免疫染色和成像人类胎儿泌尿生殖道标本的技术。然后，我们将介绍发展中的人类泌尿生殖系统各个要素的光图图像和视频。据我们所知，实验室的工作代表了在胚胎和胎儿期对整个人类泌尿生殖系统进行LSFM的方法的首次描述。