Microscopes at LCI
The Live Cell Imaging Core Facility offers high-end microscopes allowing researchers to perform the following microscopy modalities:
- Single point confocals with fast resonant scanners and spectral detectors (Dragon, Pegasus)
- Multipoint confocals (spinning disk) (Victor, Orion, Tweety)
- Widefield (Victor, Orion, Tweety, Pegasus, Minerva)
- TIRF (Pegasus, Victor)
- DeepSIM super-resolution (Orion)
- Light sheet (Aurora)
- Laser capture microdissection (Minerva)
- Slide scanner with a colour camera (Dragon, Minerva)
- Micropatterning (printing proteins on a dish) and micromanufacturing (making microwells) Primo (Tweety)
- Smart microscopy workflows using JOBS (Dragon, Tweety, Orion, Pegasus, Victor)
- Long term live cell imaging (Tweety, Victor, Pegasus, Aurora).
Below are the details for each microscope.
Tweety
This system can be used as
- Multipoint spinning disk confocal
- Widefield
- Micropatterning (printing proteins on a dish) and micromanufacturing (making microwells)
Equipment specifications
- Nikon Ti2 inverted and fully motorized microscope stand with up to 32 mm FOV
- Full size incubator for life cell imaging
- Fast piezo z drive 100 um
- High content screening JOBS module
- Smart Microscopy workflows using JOBS
- Kinetix sCMOS camera over 95% QE, 6.5 um pixels for best resolution
- Alvéole Primo micropatterning and micromanufacturing device
Filters for both Widefield and Spinning disk side
Tweety widefield and spinning disk: Semrock searchlight
- Lasers (nm):
- 405, 446, 477, 520, 546, 638, 749
- Dichroic mirrors (nm):
- 441/30; 511/26; 593/37; 684/34; 817/66
- 484/22; 561/30
- 562LP
- Emission filters (nm):
- 438/24
- 484/22; 561/30
- 515/30
- 562/40
- 593/40
- 685/40
- 561LP
- 809/81
Pegasus
This system can be used as
- Single point scanning confocal with resonant scanner for fast imaging and spectral detector
- Widefield
- TIRF
Equipment specifications
- Nikon Ti2 inverted and fully motorized microscope stand
- Full size incubator for life cell imaging
- Fast piezo z drive 100 um
- High content screening JOBS module
- Smart Microscopy workflows using JOBS
- 2x GaAsP detectors (green and red)
- 32-channel spectral detector
- Andor EM-CCD camera, 95% QE, 60 fps at 512x512 pixels. Pixel size 16 um
Filters for the widefield side
Pegasus widefield: Semrock searchlight
- Excitation filters (nm):
- 387/11; 472/30; 562/40; 620/60
- Dichroic mirrors (nm) :
- 409LP; 495LP; 593LP; 660LP
- Emission filters (Single bands) (nm):
- 447/60
- 520/35
- 624/40
- 700/75
Filters, lasers and dichroic mirrors for the confocal side
Pegasus single point confocal: Semrock searchlight
- Lasers (nm):
- 405 (diode), 457/488/514 (Argon Ion) 561 (diode); 647 (diode)
- Dichroic mirrors (nm):
- 405/488
- 405/488/561
- 405/488/561/640
- 405-457/514
- 457/514/561
- BS20/80
- Emission filters (nm):
- 450/50
- 482/35
- 525/50
- 540/30
- 595/50
- 700/75
Filter cubes for TIRF
- Dual TIRF:
- Excitation filters (nm): 488/5; 561/5
- DM (nm): 507/24; 565LP (emission)
- Emission filters (nm): 522/45; 570LP
- Quad TIRF:
- Excitation filters (nm): 405/5; 488/5; 561/5; 647/5
- DM (nm): 450/60; 525/60; 597/55; 607/55: 670LP (emission)
- Emission Filters (nm): 451/29; 525/50; 607/18; 675LP
Dragon
This system can be used as
- Single point scanning confocal with resonant scanner for fast imaging and spectral detector
- Wide field with colour, monochrome and polarized light imaging
Equipment specifications
- Nikon Ti2 inverted and fully motorized microscope stand
- Full size incubator for life cell imaging
- High content screening JOBS module
- Smart Microscopy workflows using JOBS
- 2x GaAsP detectors (green and red)
- 32-channel spectral detector
- Digital Sight 10 CMOS colour camera from Nikon, 25 mm FOV, 5.97 pixel size
Filters, lasers and dichroic mirrors
Dragon single point confocal: Semrock searchlight
- Lasers (nm):
- 405 (diode), 457/488/514 (Argon Ion) 561 (diode); 640 (diode)
- Dichroic mirrors (nm):
- 405/488;
- 405/488/561
- 405/488/561/640
- 405-457/514
- 457/514/561
- BS20/80
- Emission filters (Single bands) (nm):
- 450/50
- 482/35
- 525/50
- 540/30
- 595/50
- 700/75
Orion
Photo: LCI facility
This system can be used as
- Multipoint spinning disk confocal
- Widefield
- Super resolution (DeepSIM) ( approximately 100 nm resolution in xy and approximately 300nm resolution in z (60x or100x oil objective); 1024x1024 FOV
Equipment specifications
- Nikon Ti2 inverted and fully motorized microscope stand
- Fast piezo z drive 100 um
- High content screening JOBS module
- Smart Microscopy workflows using JOBS
- Camera from Photometrics, Kinetix sCMOS, over 95% QE, 6.5 um for best resolution
Filters, lasers and dichroic mirrors
Orion spinning disk/widefield/DeepSIM Semrock searchlight
- Lasers (nm):
- 405, 446, 477, 518, 545, 637, 748
- Dichroic mirror (nm):
- 441/30; 511/26; 592/37; 684/34; 817/66
- 485/22; 561/30 (Dual)
- Emission filters (nm):
- 438/24
- 484/22
- 515/30
- 562/40
- 593/40
- 685/40
- 809/81
Victor
This system can be used as
- Multipoint spinning disk confocal
- Widefield
- TIRF
Equipment specifications
- Nikon Ti2 inverted and fully motorized microscope stand
- Full size incubator for life cell imaging
- Fast piezo z drive 250 um
- High content screening JOBS module
- Smart Microscopy workflows using JOBS
- Widefield:
- Andor camera Zyla 4.2+. 82% QE, 100 fps at 2048x2048 pixels. Pixel size 6.45 um
- External filter wheel and SpectraX LED for fast imaging
- Spinning disk: Kinetix sCMOS, over 95% QE, 6.5 um pixel size
- Spinning disk Yokagawa CSU-X1, 10,000 rpm
- 1.2x built-in extra magnification lens in the spinning disk
Filters on the spinning disk confocal side
Victor multipoint confocal: Semrock searchlight
- Lasers (nm):
- 405, 488; 561; 640
- Dichroic mirrors (nm):
- 402/15; 487/10; 564/7; 639/22 (excitation transmitted)
- Emission filters (single band) (nm):
- 447/60
- 525/30
- 607/36
- 685/40
- Emission filters (dual band) (nm):
- 512/30; 630/100
- Emission filters (triple band) (nm):
- 525 600 690
Filters on the widefield side
Victor widefield: Semrock searchlight
- Excitation filters (nm):
- 395/25, 440/20; 475/28; 510/25; 550/15; 575/25; 631/28
- Dichroic mirrors (nm):
- 452/55; 529/52; 604/48; 675LP (emission transmitted)
- Dichroic mirror (nm) (FRET):
- 458LP (emission)
- Emission filters (single bands) (nm):
- 447/60
- 483/32
- 500LP
- 525/30
- 542/27
- 572/15
- 607/36
- 624/40
- 630/92
- 685/40
Filters on the TIRF side
- Dual TIRF (nm):
- Excitation filters (nm): 488/5; 561/5
- Dichroic mirrors (nm): 520/50; 565LP (emission transmitted)
- Emission filters (nm): 522/45; 570LP
- Quad TIRF:
- Excitation filters (nm); 405/5; 488/5; 561/5; 647/5
- Dichroic mirrors (nm): 450/60; 525/60; 597/55; 607/55: 670LP (emission)
- Emission Filters (nm): 451/29; 525/50; 607/18; 675LP
Aurora
This system can be used as
- Light sheet microscope
Equipment specifications
- Upright
- Full size incubator for life cell imaging
- Fully motorized including xy scanning size of a multiwell plate
- z fast beam scanning 900 um, additional stage scanning 1 cm
- No shadowing effect thanks to the self-healing Airy beam
- < 1um xy and z resolution with a field of view of 870x870 um
- Tiling/stitching, multiple sample or regions
- Dedicated deconvolution software running on GPU power
- 2 Hamamatsu Orca Flash cameras 4 V.3, 82% QE, 100 fps at 2048x2048 pixels. Pixel size 6.45 um
- Objective: Navitar multi-immersion: 15.3x – 17.9x; NA 0.37-0.43.
- Refraction index: 1.33-1.56 without changing objectives
- All immersion media can be used for imaging
- Working distance 12mm
How to calculate the objective NA and magnification
- NA=0.276xRI
- Mag=11.494xRI
- WD = constant for all RI
Lasers (mW)
- 405 nm(60 mW); 457 nm(100 mW); 488 nm(100 mW); 515 nm(100 mW); 561 nm(80 mW); 642 nm(140 mW); 685 nm(50 mW)
Filters
Aurora light sheet: Semrock searchlight
- Dichroic mirrors (nm):
- 510 LP and 560 LP
- Emission filters (single bands) (nm):
- 445/50
- 480/30
- 525/50
- 535/30
- 590LP
- 605/52
- 665LP
- 667/30
- 700LP (nm)
A powerful server is available for fast transfer/storage/deconvolution/stitching/analysis.
For more information on
Minerva
This system can be used as
- Widefield
- Slide scanner
- Laser microdissection
- Laser microdissection of tissue samples
- Selective Isolation of living Cells for Omics Analysis
- Isolation of rare or single cells for further cultivation
Equipment specifications
- Nikon Ti2 inverted and fully motorized microscope stand
- High content screening JOBS module
- Smart Microscopy workflows using JOBS
- MMI VCXU23c colour camera, 5.86 μm pixel size
- MMI CellCut
Filters for widefield
Minerva widefield: Semrock searchlight
- Excitation filters (nm):
- 365/10; 470/40; 544/25; 628/40
- Dichroic mirrors: 400LP (nm);
- 495LP; 565LP; 660LP
- Emission filters (nm):
- 460/50; 515/30; 605/70; 692/40
ECLIPSE Ji
ECLIPSE Ji
Photo: Gabriela Imreh
This system can be used as
- Widefield
Equipment specifications
- Benchtop microscope fully motorized
- 7.8 megapixel CMOS camera with 25 mm FOV
- 0.38x built-in extra magnification lens
- Preconfigured pipelines for plate assays such as: cell counting, cytotoxicity, intensity measurements, size and morphology, transfection efficiency.
- AI and Deep learning based acquisition settings and data analysis
- Available objectives: 4x air (NA 0.20), 10x air (0.5), 20x air (0.8)
Available pre-configured assays pipelines
- Intensity measurement
- Cell counting (end point): DAPI or Hoescht staining
- Cytotoxicity: measures live and dead cells and the ratio (Hoescht and ethidium homodimer 1))
- Cell size and morphology analysis - protocol
- AI-powered optimization of transfection efficiency by nucleus and cellular region detection from brightfield images: protocol
- Apoptosis assay: protocol
- Quantitative analysis of autophagy activity assay: protocol
- Analysis of DNA Damage (gamma-H2AX): protocol
- Analysis of nuclear translocation: protocol
- Calculating the percentage of cells with micronuclei: protocol
- Analysis of endocytosis: protocol
- Analysis of phagocytosis: protocol
- Mitochondrial toxicity analysis: protocol
Filters for Widefield
- Excitation filters (nm):
- 378/52; 474/26; 554/23; 635/18
- Dichroic mirrors (nm):
- 432/36; 515/31; 595/31; 729/141 (emission)
- Emission filters (nm):
- 432/36; 515/31; 595/31; 730/139