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Current issue
The Bio-Imaging Resource Center's Microscopes in action
 IMAGE: ZHENYU YUE / HEINTZ LAB / ALISON NORTH Confocal microscope. By using only light that has passed through a pinhole, confocal microscopes eliminate out-of-focus light that would otherwise obscure fine details and allow researchers to view only a thin section of cells or tissue. In this image, a slice of brain tissue is labeled with three stains: blue marks the nuclei of nerve cells; green shows nerve cell processes called dendrites; and red indicates structural elements of the cells called microtubules. The image is a composite of several individual sections, each of them one one-thousandth of a millimeter thick. IMAGE: ZHENYU YUE / HEINTZ LAB / ALISON NORTH Multi-photon microscope. Multi-photon imaging uses beams of infrared light to excite fluorescent molecules. Because infrared light does not scatter as much as visible light as it passes through biological specimens, multiphoton microscopes permit scientists to see deep into the tissues of living organisms. This image of a mouse embryo, which is reconstructed from 30 individual slices, shows the nuclei of each cell in the embryo. IMAGE: KAT HADJANTONAKIS / MARY DICKINSON / ALISON NORTH DeltaVision microscope. Using computer algorithms, the DeltaVision “image restoration” microscope corrects for the optical distortions that inevitably occur whenever light passes through a lens. This image shows the chromosomes (blue) and spindle fibers (green) lined up at the center of a single cell as it divides. The DeltaVision is optimal for thin specimens up to 20 one-thousandths of a millimeter thick, and has powerful 3D reconstruction software that allows researchers to view every possible angle of their specimen. Here, the image on the right is a 90-degree rotation of the image on the left. IMAGE: GREGORY JEDD / ALISON NORTH Confocal microscope with time-lapse imaging. Confocal microscopes are also well suited for following the movement of specific particles in living cells. Here, scientists tracked the movement of a cellular organelle called a peroxisome in the fungus Neurospora crassa. The peroxisomes, which were labeled to glow green, are superimposed over an image showing other cellular structures. The movement of each peroxisome was followed using software that performs particle tracking, and the track of one peroxisome is shown in red. IMAGE: JASMIN DYNEK / ALISON NORTH Spinning disk confocal. Rather than using a single pinhole, the spinning disk confocal microscope employs 20,000 tiny pinholes on a rapidly spinning disk so that the entire field of view can be illuminated constantly. This allows scientists to take a series of images in quick succession, and it may also be gentler on living cells than the intense beams of light used on other confocal scopes. In this series of images, six frames collected over a five-hour period show two neighboring cells as they undergo division. The cells’ chromosomes are labeled with a fluorescent protein that causes them to glow brightly. 
IMAGE: ELEANA SPHICAS / DANWEI HUANGFU / KATHRYN ANDERSON Scanning electron microscope. Scanning electron microscopes are used to reveal three-dimensional details on the surface of cells and organisms. Higher-resolution structural details can then be obtained using a transmission electron microscope to image ultrathin sections of an organism. This image of an eight-day-old mouse embryo shows the tiny hair-like appendages called cilia that protrude from nodes on its surface. October 15, 2004 |
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