Located on the third floor of the Health Sciences Addition, the Molecular Microscope Facility has four microscopes dedicated to a variety of conventional and advanced imaging modalities.
Location & Contact
Location: Health Sciences Addition rooms H315 and H301
Facility Supervisor: Dr. Bryan Heit, bheit@uwo.ca
Facility Technician: Angela Vrieze akipp4@uwo.ca
Webpage: https://www.molimage.ca
Available Instruments
Zeiss Axio Observer
This microscope is a widefield microscope specifically designed for single-molecule, high-speed, and FRET microscopy. This microscope has a Hamamatsu W view, which allows for the simultaneous acquisition of two fluorophores at the same time. This enables high-speed single particle tracking of two molecules at the same time, dual-colour SRRF super-resolution microscopy, and high-speed live cell imaging.
This microscope is being installed and additional information will be posted once it is operational.
Objectives: TBA
Excitation Lines: Colibri 7 multi-channel excitation source and corresponding filters.
Camera: Hamamatsu ORCA-Fusion CMOS
Whitelight Optics: Brightfield and DIC
Other: Heated/CO2 perfused motorized stage
Control Software: Zeiss Zen
Leica Ground State Depletion Microscope
This super-resolution microscope provides molecular-level resolution (~20 nm), providing an unprecedented view of the inner workings of cells. This imaging can be performed at any position in the cell via widefield illumination, or the basolateral membrane can be selectively imaged using TIRF illumination. Tissues can also be imaged using this system, and we have spin-coating facilities for preparing these types of samples.
This microscope requires specialized sample preparation and does not work with all fluorophores.
Objectives: 160×/1.45NA
Excitation Lines: Lasers for GFP, Cy3, and Cy5 excitation, plus a UV-laser for back pumping.
Camera: Andor iXion 3
Whitelight Optics: Brightfield and DIC
Control Software: Leica LAS-AF
Leica DMI6000B
This microscope is a general-purpose widefield microscope designed to allow for a range of live-cell and fixed-cell imaging approaches. This includes conventional live-cell imaging, Z-stacking, tiling, and point-visiting. Its high sensitivity EM-CCD also allows for some single molecule approaches, FRET microscopy, and super-resolution radial fluctuation super-resolution microscopy.
Objectives: 100×/1.40NA, 63×/1.40NA, and 40×/1.30NA
Excitation Lines: Chroma Sedat Quad filter set (DAPI, FITC, Cy3, and Cy5), plus additional filters and cubes for CFP/YFP FRET and quantum dot imaging.
Cameras: Photometrics Evolve 512Delta EM-CCD and Hamamatsu ORCA-Flash4 CMOS
Whitelight Optics: Brightfield and DIC
Other: Heated/CO2 perfused motorized stage
Control Software: INSCOPER
Tissue Imaging Microscope
The tissue imaging microscope is built on a Leica DMI body and is dedicate for tiling-based imaging of immunofluorescence tissue samples, and for colour imaging of immunohistochemistry-labeled samples.
Objectives: 5×, 10×, and 20× air objective
Excitation Lines: Filter sets for DAPI, FITC, Cy3 and Cy5
Cameras: 16-bit CMOS camera for fluorescent imaging, and a 32-bit R/G/B CMOS for colour/immunohistochemistry imaging.
Other: Motorised stage with advanced tiling and zoom capabilities.
Control Software: Leica LAS-X
Cryostat
A Leica CM18602 cryostat is available for cutting frozen sections as part of the preparation process for immunostaining or immunohistochemistry.