Light Microscopy Techniques for Live Cell Imaging

Science ◽  
2003 ◽  
Vol 300 (5616) ◽  
pp. 82-86 ◽  
Author(s):  
D. J. Stephens
2020 ◽  
Vol 98 (5) ◽  
pp. 612-623
Author(s):  
Adam Tepperman ◽  
David Jiao Zheng ◽  
Maria Abou Taka ◽  
Angela Vrieze ◽  
Austin Le Lam ◽  
...  

Using multiple imaging modalities while performing independent experiments in parallel can greatly enhance the throughput of microscopy-based research, but requires the provision of appropriate experimental conditions in a format that meets the optical requirements of the microscope. Although customized imaging chambers can meet these challenges, the difficulty of manufacturing custom chambers and the relatively high cost and design inflexibility of commercial chambers has limited the adoption of this approach. Herein, we demonstrate the use of 3D printing to produce inexpensive, customized, live-cell imaging chambers that are compatible with a range of imaging modalities, including super-resolution microscopy. In this approach, biocompatible plastics are used to print imaging chambers designed to meet the specific needs of an experiment, followed by adhesion of the printed chamber to a glass coverslip, producing a chamber that is impermeant to liquids and that supports the growth and imaging of cells over multiple days. This approach can also be used to produce moulds for casting microfluidic devices made of polydimethylsiloxane. The utility of these chambers is demonstrated using designs for multiplex microscopy, imaging under shear, chemotaxis, and general cellular imaging. Together, this approach represents an inexpensive yet highly customizable approach for producing imaging chambers that are compatible with modern microscopy techniques.


2016 ◽  
Vol 371 (1707) ◽  
pp. 20150499 ◽  
Author(s):  
Johannes P. Schneider ◽  
Marek Basler

To understand basic principles of living organisms one has to know many different properties of all cellular components, their mutual interactions but also their amounts and spatial organization. Live-cell imaging is one possible approach to obtain such data. To get multiple snapshots of a cellular process, the imaging approach has to be gentle enough to not disrupt basic functions of the cell but also have high temporal and spatial resolution to detect and describe the changes. Light microscopy has become a method of choice and since its early development over 300 years ago revolutionized our understanding of living organisms. As most cellular components are indistinguishable from the rest of the cellular contents, the second revolution came from a discovery of specific labelling techniques, such as fusions to fluorescent proteins that allowed specific tracking of a component of interest. Currently, several different tags can be tracked independently and this allows us to simultaneously monitor the dynamics of several cellular components and from the correlation of their dynamics to infer their respective functions. It is, therefore, not surprising that live-cell fluorescence microscopy significantly advanced our understanding of basic cellular processes. Current cameras are fast enough to detect changes with millisecond time resolution and are sensitive enough to detect even a few photons per pixel. Together with constant improvement of properties of fluorescent tags, it is now possible to track single molecules in living cells over an extended period of time with a great temporal resolution. The parallel development of new illumination and detection techniques allowed breaking the diffraction barrier and thus further pushed the resolution limit of light microscopy. In this review, we would like to cover recent advances in live-cell imaging technology relevant to bacterial cells and provide a few examples of research that has been possible due to imaging. This article is part of the themed issue ‘The new bacteriology’.


2011 ◽  
Vol 135 (2) ◽  
pp. 255-263
Author(s):  
Daniel B Schmolze ◽  
Clive Standley ◽  
Kevin E Fogarty ◽  
Andrew H Fischer

Abstract Context.—Advances in microscopy enable visualization of a broad range of new morphologic features. Objective.—To review and illustrate advances in microscopy with relevance to pathologists. Data Sources.—Literature review and new observations. Results.—Fluorescence microscopy enables multiantigen detection; allows novel optical-sectioning techniques, with some advantages compared to paraffin sectioning; and permits live-cell imaging. Live-cell imaging allows pathologists to move from a period when all diagnostic expertise was reliant on interpreting static images to a period when cellular dynamics can play a role in diagnosis. New techniques have bypassed by about 100-fold what had long been believed to be a limit to the resolution of light microscopy. Fluorescence resonance energy transfer (FRET) appears capable of visualizing diagnostically relevant molecular events in living or fixed cells that are immeasurable by other molecular techniques. We describe applications of 2-photon microscopy, FRET, structured illumination, and the subdiffraction techniques of near-field microscopy, photoactivated localization microscopy, stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy, and stimulated emission depletion microscopy. Conclusion.—New microscopy techniques present opportunities for pathologists to develop improved diagnostic tests.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Adam Tepperman ◽  
David Jiao Zheng ◽  
Maria Abou Taka ◽  
Angela Vrieze ◽  
Austin Le Lam ◽  
...  

AbstractUsing multiple imaging modalities while performing independent experiments in parallel can greatly enhance the throughput of microscopy-based research, but requires provision of appropriate experimental conditions in a format that meets the microscopy’s optical requirements. Although customized imaging chambers can meet these challenges, the difficulty of manufacturing custom chambers and the relatively high cost and design inflexibility of commercial chambers has limited the adoption of this approach. Herein, we demonstrate the use of 3D printing to produce inexpensive, customized live-cell imaging chambers that are compatible with a range of imaging modalities including super-resolution microscopy. In this approach, biocompatible plastics are used to print imaging chambers designed to meet the specific needs of an experiment, followed by adhesion of the printed chamber to a glass coverslip, producing a chamber that is impermeant to liquids and which supports the growth and imaging of cells over multiple days. This approach can also be used to produce moulds for casting PDMS microfluidic devices. The utility of these chambers is demonstrated using designs for multiplex microscopy, imaging under shear, chemotaxis, and general cellular imaging. Together, this approach represents an inexpensive yet highly customizable approach to produce imaging chambers that are compatible with modern microscopy techniques.


PLoS ONE ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 16 (1) ◽  
pp. e0245795
Author(s):  
Agatha M. Reigoto ◽  
Sarah A. Andrade ◽  
Marianna C. R. R. Seixas ◽  
Manoel L. Costa ◽  
Claudia Mermelstein

Microscopy is the main technique to visualize and study the structure and function of cells. The impact of optical and electron microscopy techniques is enormous in all fields of biomedical research. It is possible that different research areas rely on microscopy in diverse ways. Here, we analyzed comparatively the use of microscopy in pharmacology and cell biology, among other biomedical sciences fields. We collected data from articles published in several major journals in these fields. We analyzed the frequency of use of different optical and electron microscopy techniques: bright field, phase contrast, differential interference contrast, polarization, conventional fluorescence, confocal, live cell imaging, super resolution, transmission and scanning electron microscopy, and cryoelectron microscopy. Our analysis showed that the use of microscopy has a distinctive pattern in each research area, and that nearly half of the articles from pharmacology journals did not use any microscopy method, compared to the use of microscopy in almost all the articles from cell biology journals. The most frequent microscopy methods in all the journals in all areas were bright field and fluorescence (conventional and confocal). Again, the pattern of use was different: while the most used microscopy methods in pharmacology were bright field and conventional fluorescence, in cell biology the most used methods were conventional and confocal fluorescence, and live cell imaging. We observed that the combination of different microscopy techniques was more frequent in cell biology, with up to 6 methods in the same article. To correlate the use of microscopy with the research theme of each article, we analyzed the proportion of microscopy figures with the use of cell culture. We analyzed comparatively the vocabulary of each biomedical sciences field, by the identification of the most frequent words in the articles. The collection of data described here shows a vast difference in the use of microscopy among different fields of biomedical sciences. The data presented here could be valuable in other scientific and educational contexts.


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