How to capture live cells under microscope - (Jan/18/2015 )

Dear all, 

Does anyone know how to capture the movement of live cells under microscope? What kind of dye and microscope is suitable to use?

Thank you. 

Hello Celz,

It's quite possible to do - but maybe a bit more information on exactly what you want to do would be helpful.

The simplest solution would be a microscope that can accommodate a tissue culture dish, and that has some sort of phase contrast (either simple phase, or something more advanced like DIC or Hoffmann).  You need a system that can take time lapse images - and depending on how fast your cells are moving you can set the capture time appropriately.

More advanced systems will allow you to actually track individual cells.  

Depending on the period of time you want to capture the movement (ie if it is a slow migration over hours) you will want a system that can provide the right temperature and CO2 concentration to your cells in the culture plate.  There are specialised systems for live cells - or you can get a live cell adaptor for many inverted scopes.  

You can also work with something like GFP - and track only labelled cells.

Then there are systems like the Incucyte (http://www.essenbioscience.com/essen-products/incucyte/). An imaging system that goes into your incubator.  We have a couple of these at the institution and they are quite amazing.  Help with hypoxia projects etc as you use your own incubator you normally culture the cells in and image over time with the system.

Hope that helps.

Neil

Hi Neil, 

What if the sample is probiotic instead of animal cells? Is it possible to use light microscope/inverted microscope to capture the cell movement? Do we need any dye to stain it out?

Thanks.

Celz. 

This video might help.