The system is an Olympus FV1000 MPE SIM on an inverted microscope stand and features an environmental enclosure with temperature, gas, humidity control and light exclusion. An extensive range of standard lasers are available: 405 nm for UV dyes (e.g. DAPI), 440 nm for eCFP, 488 nm for e.g. FITC, 514 nm for e.g. YFP, 559 nm for e.g. Rhodamine, Texas red/dsRed & 635 nm for e.g. CY5/Alexa 633. These lasers also permit imaging of standard and more exotic FRET pairs. Scanning in x-y & z axes allows serial section image collection for later 3-D rendering and analysis. The motorized x-y stage allows multiple area time lapse experiments and tiling/montaging in 2-D & 3-dimensions or the imaging of multiwell micro-titer plates. The SIM module can do rapid photo-activation or fluorescence recovery after photobleaching protocols.
Mutiphoton confocal imaging is powered by a pulsed IR laser tunable from 690 to 1040 nm. Deep tissue imaging is enhanced by pulse precompensation. Standard spectral or high sensitivity non-descanned detectors provide added flexibility.
In support of this versatile resource a 37C, 5% CO2, 95% humidity an incubator is available for sample storage, and network accessible raid disk array long term image storage. Off line imaging software include the Olympus offline viewer and Volocity volume visualization software, with license server (http://microscopy.unc.edu/volocity/), for 3D and time lapse rendering, analysis, movie production, 3-D particle tracking, object counting or co-localization analysis and deconvolution.
The system is funded by the North Carolina Biotechnology Center and the School of Medicine. Users from the UNC campuses and other research institutions are welcome. Please contact the MH Microscopy Facility personnel for demonstrations, instruction, requests and more information.
The Facility is located in the Thurston Bowles Building, room 6129.
