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Studying Wound Healing of Smooth Muscle Cells
This article discusses how wound healing of cultured smooth muscle cells (SMCs) in multiwell plates can be reliably studied over time with less effort using a specially configured Leica inverted…
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Multicellular Organization during Stem Cell Dynamics
Multicellular organization, e.g. during tissue morphogenesis or of human embryonic stem cells, relies on collective cytoskeletal dynamics. During their studies of multicellular developing human…
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How to Prepare Your Specimen for Immunofluorescence Microscopy
Immunofluorescence (IF) is a powerful method for visualizing intracellular processes, conditions and structures. IF preparations can be analyzed by various microscopy techniques (e.g. CLSM,…
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Studying Actin Cytoskeleton and Microfilament Assembly
This article demonstrates how actin microfilament assemblies can be clearly visualized with superior resolution at the plasma membrane of a cell using a DMi8 S Infinity TIRF High Power imaging…
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Download The Guide to Live Cell Imaging
In life science research, live cell imaging is an indispensable tool to visualize cells in a state as in vivo as possible. This E-book reviews a wide range of important considerations to take to…
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Plant Cell Development and Morphogenesis
The article discusses how tubulin molecules, which make up microtubules, in plant cells can be studied with total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy to better understand tubulin…
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Factors to Consider When Selecting a Research Microscope
An optical microscope is often one of the central devices in a life-science research lab. It can be used for various applications which shed light on many scientific questions. Thereby the…
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Upright Fluorescence Microscopy for Virus Replication Studies
The severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) emerged in late 2019 and spread over the world quickly. Due to its dramatic impact, researchers are interested in the nature of the…
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Microscopy in Virology
The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, causing the Covid-19 disease effects our world in all aspects. Research to find immunization and treatment methods, in other words to fight this virus, gained highest…
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Observing the effect on transcription factor signaling and chromatin landscapes in cells infected with the human coronavirus 229E
Viral infection triggers an inflammatory cellular response which is characterized by altered gene expression. In this study, the influence of coronaviruses on cellular NF-κB (transcription factor)…
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Where to go? Cellular Migration requires coordinated Transitions of Actin Cortex
Plants, Bacteria, and Fungi possess a rigid cell wall that protects the cell and gives it shape. Animal cells, such as mammalian cells, have no outer wall, which exposes their plasma membrane to the…
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How to Develop an Airway Epithelial Cell Model
The present study describes the optimal growth conditions for the proliferation and differentiation of bovine bronchial epithelial cells (BBECs). The cells are grown at an air-liquid interface (ALI)…
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Proline Metabolism is Essential for Trypanosoma brucei brucei Survival in the Tsetse Vector
Bloodsucking insects play a major role in the transmission of pathogens that cause major tropical diseases. Their capacity to transmit these diseases is directly associated with the availability and…
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mTORC1 Promotes Proliferation of Immature Schwann Cells and Myelin Growth of Differentiated Schwann Cells
The myelination of axons is essential for neuronal wiring and normal nervous system functions. In the peripheral nervous system, Schwann cells (SCs) form myelin sheaths around axons during nerve…
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Solvent immersion imprint lithography
We expand upon our recent, fundamental report on solvent immersion imprint lithography (SIIL) and describe a semi-automated and high-performance procedure for prototyping polymer microfluidics and…
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Role of circadian gene Clock during differentiation of mouse pluripotent stem cells
Biological rhythms controlled by the circadian clock are absent in embryonic stem cells (ESCs). However, they start to develop during the differentiation of pluripotent ESCs to downstream cells.…
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KChIP2 regulates the cardiac Ca²⁺ transient and myocyte contractility by targeting ryanodine receptor activity
Pathologic electrical remodeling and attenuated cardiac contractility are featured characteristics of heart failure. Coinciding with these remodeling events is a loss of the K+ channel interacting…
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Effect of curcumin analogs onα-synuclein aggregation and cytotoxicity
Alpha-synuclein (α-Syn) aggregation into oligomers and fibrils is associated with dopaminergic neuron loss occurring in Parkinson’s disease (PD) pathogenesis. Compounds that modulate α-Syn aggregation…
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Koehler Illumination: A Brief History and a Practical Set Up in Five Easy Steps
The technique of Koehler Illumination is one of the most important and fundamental techniques in achieving optimum imaging in any given light microscope set-up. Although it should be routinely used as…
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Introduction to Mammalian Cell Culture
Mammalian cell culture is one of the basic pillars of life sciences. Without the ability to grow cells in the lab, the fast progress in disciplines like cell biology, immunology, or cancer research…
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Immersion Objectives: Using Oil, Glycerol, or Water to Overcome some of the Limits of Resolution
To examine specimens at high magnifications using the microscope, there are a number of factors which need to be taken into consideration. These include resolution, numerical aperture (NA), the…
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Graphene-Based Microbots for Toxic Heavy Metal Removal and Recovery from Water
Heavy metal contamination in water is a serious risk to the public health and other life forms on earth. Current research in nanotechnology is developing new nanosystems and nanomaterials for the fast…
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Introduction to Widefield Microscopy
One of the most basic microscopy techniques is known as ‘Widefield Microscopy’. It is fundamentally any technique in which the entire specimen of interest is exposed to the light source with the…
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Coming to Grips with Biological Information Through Flexible Organic Electronics: Developing Bendable and Stretchable Biosensors and Device
What do you associate with the word sensor? Perhaps technologies delivering automation in factories and other production sites? That may be what comes to mind, but advances in organic electronics are…
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What is Photomanipulation?
The term photomanipulation describes a wide range of techniques that enable the microscopist the transition from passive observer to instigator of events by offering a way of interacting with their…
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Quality with Confidence
From routine quality assurance to advanced 3D analysis of complex surface structures, there is a digital microscope solution to meet almost any request
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Photoactivatable, photoconvertible, and photoswitchable Fluorescent Proteins
Fluorescent proteins (FPs) such as GFP, YFP or DsRed are powerful tools to visualize cellular components in living cells. Nevertheless, there are circumstances when classical FPs reach their limits.…
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Milestones in Incident Light Fluorescence Microscopy
Since the middle of the last century, fluorescence microscopy developed into a bio scientific tool with one of the biggest impacts on our understanding of life. Watching cells and proteins with the…
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Chronic Inflammation Under the Microscope
In the course of chronic inflammation certain body areas are recurrently inflamed. This goes along with many human diseases. With the help of widefield light microscopy, the underlying processes can…
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Microscope Resolution: Concepts, Factors and Calculation
In microscopy, the term ‘resolution’ is used to describe the ability of a microscope to distinguish detail. In other words, this is the minimum distance at which two distinct points of a specimen can…
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Gene Editing with CRISPR/Cas9 - Breakthrough in Genome Engineering
The CRISPR/Cas9 system is one of several different bacterial systems for defense against viral attacks. It consists of two main components. One is a small piece of RNA which binds to the viral target…
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Initiation of Lamellipodia and Ruffles Involves Cooperation Between mDia1 and the Arp2/3 Complex
Protrusion of lamellipodia and ruffles requires polymerization of branched actin filaments by the Arp2/3 complex. Although regulation of Arp2/3 complex activity has been extensively investigated, the…
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Botulinum Neurotoxin Type-A Enters a Non-Recycling Pool of Synaptic Vesicles
Neuronal communication relies on synaptic vesicles undergoing regulated exocytosis and recycling for multiple rounds of fusion. Whether all synaptic vesicles have identical protein content has been…
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Work Efficiently in Developmental Biology with Stereo and Confocal Microscopy: C. elegans
For scientists, technicians, and teachers working with the worm C. elegans in the research lab or classroom, this report is intended to give useful information to help improve their daly work. The aim…
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Infinity Optical Systems
“Infinity Optics” refers to the concept of a beam path with parallel rays between the objective and the tube lens of a microscope. Flat optical components can be brought into this “Infinity Space”…
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Color Infidelity: Why Using a Light Source Incorrectly is Cheating on your Data
There are many influences on color in the imaging process including lighting, optics, sensor, and monitor, and ultimately print. The first, and generally most important, is lighting. There are plenty…
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Fluorescent Proteins Illuminate Cell Biology
Green fluorescent protein (GFP) isolated from the jellyfish Aequorea victoria and GFP-like fluorescent proteins from other animals have had an important role in the technical innovations that have…
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iMSRC: Converting a Standard Automated Microscope into an Intelligent Screening Platform
Microscopy in the context of biomedical research is demanding new tools to automatically detect and capture objects of interest. The few extant packages addressing this need, however, have enjoyed…
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Video Talk by Daniel Axelrod: Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) Microscopy
Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) Microscopy is a technique that only illuminates dye molecules near a surface. In this video, the pioneer of TIRF Microscopy describes what this technique…
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Immunotherapy to Combat Cancer: "Sleeping Beauty" – DNA Plasmid-based Gene Transfer System to Modify T Cells
Fighting cancer is a major goal of present-day medicine. So far mainly surgery, chemotherapy or radiation therapy are utilized to extinguish cancerous tissue, or at least set limits to it.
…
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Optogenetic Toolkit Goes Multicolor
Optogenetics is a technique that allows scientists to control neurons’ electrical activity with light by engineering them to express light-sensitive proteins. Within the past decade, it has become a…
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Optogenetics
Optogenetics is a technique that allows light-controlled responses of transfected cells. The cells are genetically modified by introduction of genes that code for light-induced channels or ion pumps.…
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Controlling the TIRF Penetration Depth is Mandatory for Reproducible Results
The main feature of total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) microscopy is the employment of an evanescent wave for the excitation of fluorophores instead of using direct light. A property of the…
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Basic Principles of Luminescence
There are a lot of light-emitting processes occurring in nature. Luminescence is an umbrella term for those kinds of events where light emission is not the result of high temperatures. This article…
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Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence (TIRF) Microscopy
Total internal reflection fluorescence (TIRF) is a special technique in fluorescence microscopy developed by Daniel Axelrod at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor in the early 1980s. TIRF microscopy…
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Fluorescence Recovery after Photobleaching (FRAP) and its Offspring
FRAP (Fluorescence recovery after photobleaching) can be used to study cellular protein dynamics: For visualization the protein of interest is fused to a fluorescent protein or a fluorescent dye. A…
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Optical Contrast Methods
Optical contrast methods give the potential to easily examine living and colorless specimens. Different microscopic techniques aim to change phase shifts caused by the interaction of light with the…
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Differential Interference Contrast (DIC)
Differential interference contrast (DIC) microscopy is a good alternative to brightfield microscopy for gaining proper images of unstained specimens that often only provide a weak image in…
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Integrated Modulation Contrast (IMC)
Hoffman modulation contrast has established itself as a standard for the observation of unstained, low-contrast biological specimens. The integration of the modulator in the beam path of themodern…
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An Introduction to Fluorescence
Fluorescence is widely used in microscopy and an important tool for observing the distribution of specific molecules. Most molecules in cells do not fluoresce. They therefore have to be marked with…
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Fluorescence in Microscopy
Fluorescence microscopy is a special form of light microscopy. It uses the ability of fluorochromes to emit light after being excited with light of a certain wavelength. Proteins of interest can be…
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TIRF Microscopy of the Apical Membrane of Polarized Epithelial Cells
Application of TIRF microscopy (Total Internal Reflection Fluorescence) allows the visualization of structures at the apical surface of polarized epithelial cells that have been hidden in conventional…
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Exploring Cell Logistics
Using TIRF microscopy, scientists have been able to take a closer look at intracellular transport processes with the example of the galactose-binding protein Galectin-3, which has been identified as a…
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Fields of Application
Fluorescence Microscopy Solutions
Find out how fluorescence microscopes from Leica Microsystems support your research. Fluorescence is one of the most commonly used physical phenomena in biological and analytical microscopy for its…
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Micromanipulation
Witness automated, fast micromanipulation with this easy and convenient system from Leica Microsystems. Fully equipped with inverted research microscope and electronic micromanipulators, these…
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Photomanipulation
The term photomanipulation encompasses a range of techniques that utilize the properties of fluorescent molecules to initiate events and observe how dynamic complexes behave over time in living cells.…
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Live Cell Imaging
Shifting perspective from single microscope components to a full working live cell imaging solution, Leica Microsystems integrates microscope, LAS X imaging software, cameras, and dedicated…
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Cell Culture
Growing cells under lab conditions is the base for scientists working in fields of cell or developmental biology, cancer research, or any kind of life science and pharma research. Find out how Leica…
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Virology
Do your research interests focus on viral infection and disease? Find out how you can gain insights into virology with solutions for imaging and sample preparation from Leica Microsystems.
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