Live Cell Imaging
With the variety of fluorescent proteins and multicolored probes that have been developed, it is now possible to label virtually any molecule. The ability to visualize protein dynamics in vesicles, organelles, cells, and tissues has provided new insights into how cells function in healthy and disease states. These insights include the spatiotemporal dynamics of processes like mitosis, embryonic development, and cytoskeleton changes.
When studying live cells, common obstacles include phototoxicity and photodamage. To capture fast biological processes, it is crucial to keep the cells healthy and obtain crisp images for reliable data that are free of artifacts. Live‐cell microscopy often requires a compromise between image quality and cell health. During imaging, certain environmental conditions must be maintained to avoid changes in the cells.
A variety of high-performance Leica imaging solutions can overcome these challenges for live-cell imaging enabling new information for cellular physiology and dynamics to be discovered.
Our experts on solutions for live cell imaging applications are happy to help you with their advice.
Cell Viability & Dynamics During Imaging
Leica Microsystems provides you with intelligent innovations in live-cell imaging. Our solutions help you get the best image quality while protecting your samples.
Most cellular processes occur in 3 dimensions over time. Therefore, cells need to be imaged in four dimensions (XYZ and time) to obtain a complete picture. Time‐lapse imaging is used to capture cell events over timescales from seconds to months. Repeated imaging of cells at particular points in time is also possible. To protect cell viability during this process, live-cell imaging requires the temperature, pH, and humidity to be kept under control. Light exposure should also be at a minimum to avoid phototoxicity.
Leica Microsystems offers imaging solutions that help optimize your study of live cells, even over long periods of time. They provide the necessary image contrast and resolution to facilitate the analysis of dynamic events. Some Leica systems also enable high-speed imaging, so no key cellular events are missed.
Your Live Cell Imaging Needs
To perform successful live-cell imaging experiments, using the right platform is critical. When choosing an optical microscope for live‐cell imaging, the following 3 variables should be considered: detector sensitivity (signal‐to‐noise ratio), specimen viability, and image-acquisition speed.
Methods suitable for live-cell applications enable visualization of the dynamics without causing cell damage, as it can affect the results.
Live‐cell imaging is mainly performed with fluorescence microscopy. Widefield microscopy, providing flexible excitation and fast acquisition, is typically used to visualize cell dynamics and development over long times. Confocal microscopy is typically used to study subcellular dynamic events. Multiphoton microscopy alllows excitation with longer wavelength light reducing photobleaching and extending cell viability. Finally, fluorescence lifetime imaging (FLIM) can be applied to study fast dynamic signaling events in cells.
Leica Microsystems offers the latest innovations in widefield and confocal imaging technologies for fast 3D live cell imaging with the THUNDER Imagers, STELLARIS confocal platform, and FLIM.
Live Cell Imaging Products
Filter by Area of Application
STELLARIS
With the STELLARIS confocal platform, we have re-imagined confocal microscopy to get you closer to the truth.
THUNDER Imager Model Organism
The THUNDER Imager Model Organism allows fast and easy 3D exploration of whole organisms for developmental or molecular biology research.
STELLARIS DLS
Discover new applications by combining confocal and light-sheet microscopy
K5
sCMOS Microscope Camera
THUNDER Imager Live Cell & 3D Cell Culture & 3D Assay
THUNDER Imagers provide you with a solution for advanced 3D cell culture assays, whether you want to study stem cells, spheroids, or organoids.
THUNDER Imager Tissue
The THUNDER Imager Tissue allows real-time fluorescence imaging of 3D tissue sections typically used in neuroscience and histology research.
STELLARIS 8 FALCON
The contrast is clear. Lifetime imaging in an instant.
PAULA
Smart Cell Imager
LAS X Life Science
Software platform for life science applications
DMi8 S Platform
For routine to live cell research
Infinity TIRF
Multicolor advanced TIRF module
Leica DMi1
Entry level inverted microscope
Leica DM IL LED
Inverted Laboratory Microscope with LED Illumination
Leica DFC365 FX
1.4 MP cooled monochrome camera for standard live cell imaging of GFP-expressing cells and tissues
About Live Cell Imaging
Besides the structural organization of cells or organs, dynamic processes are a major contributor to a functioning biological entity. Naturally, these processes can be best observed in living cells with non-invasive techniques like optical methods, collectively called “live-cell imaging” methods. Live-cell imaging covers all techniques where live cells are observed with microscopes – from the observation of embryogenesis with stereo microscopes, via cell growth studies with compound microscopes, until studies of physiological states of cells or cellular transport using fluorescent dyes or proteins. Although being highly demanding for both, experimenter and equipment (e.g. imaging systems, climate control), live-cell imaging techniques deliver results that are indispensable for present-day research.
Applications of TIRF Microscopy in Life Science Research
The special feature of TIRF microscopy is the employment of an evanescent field for fluorophore excitation. Unlike standard widefield fluorescence illumination procedures with arc lamps, LEDs or…Read article
TIRF Microscopy Explores Cellular Transport Processes
Due to their special role in organ function and the exchange of biological components some body cells developed certain polarization characteristics. These are reflected in differences of their plasma…Read article
Live-cell Imaging Techniques
The understanding of complex and/or fast cellular dynamics is an important step for exploring biological processes. Therefore, today’s life science research is increasingly focusing on dynamic…Read article
The New Repository on the Block
The need for data validation and accessibility has never been greater than it is today. We are inundated with information from a multitude of resources, but how can we easily evaluate the accuracy of…Read article
Ratiometric Imaging
Many fundamental functions of a cell strongly depend on delicate, but nevertheless dynamic balances of ions (e.g. calcium, magnesium), voltage potentials and pH between the cell’s cytosol and the…Read article
The Patch-Clamp Technique
Especially in neuroscience, the physiology of ion channels has always been a major topic of interest. The development of the patch-clamp technique in the late 1970s has given electrophysiologists new…Read article
STED Nanoscopy of Actin Dynamics in Synapses deep inside Living Brain Slices
It is difficult to investigate the mechanisms that mediate long-term changes in synapse function because synapses are small and deeply embedded inside brain tissue. Although recent fluorescence…Read article
Nanoscopy in a Living Multicellular Organism Expressing GFP
We report superresolution fluorescence microscopy in an intact living organism, namely Caenorhabditis elegans nematodes expressing green fluorescent protein (GFP)-fusion proteins. We also…Read article
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…Read article
Mapping Billions of Synapses with Microscopy and Mathematics
A combination of widefield imaging techniques and image segmentation analysis enable researchers to map learning-induced functional changes in individual synapses throughout the hippocampus.Read article
Sniffing Out the Secrets of Social Behavior
Yet we are only just beginning to understand the complexities and functional differences of the sense of smell in mammals. Prof. Marc Spehr, head of the Department of Chemosensation at RWTH Aachen…Read article
Exploring the Concert of Neuronal Activities
Brain research using Confocal and Multiphoton Microscopy. Using imaging techniques such as confocal and two-photon microscopy, neuronal dendritic arborization of neurons and their synaptic…Read article
Stem Cell Biology in Cancer Research
The comprehension of stem cell biology and its molecular basis is now acquiring paramount importance in cancer research. The need to look at a single, possibly living, cell makes fluorescence…Read article
New Standard in Electrophysiology and Deep Tissue Imaging
The function of nerve and muscle cells relies on ionic currents flowing through ion channels. These ion channels play a major role in cell physiology. One way to investigate ion channels is to use…Read article
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…Read article
