Cell Biology

Mitosis and Meiosis are the processes that define cell division. Mitosis is the division of somatic cells. Meiosis is the division of germ cells to originate the gametes. Both mitosis and Meiosis are dynamics event and be analysed live and fixed.

Operating Andor Benchtop Confocal and Andor Dragonfly  widefield mode allows image mitosis in monolayer cells under very low light conditions. The confocal is the ideal choice for thicker samples such as c. elegans. Imaging cell division along a large tissue area will benefit from sCMOs large field of view. For live super-resolution applications such as kinetochore-microtubule interaction, Dragonfly equipped with EMCCD and SRRF-Stream licence is the ideal choice.

Andor's Mosaic will allow users to specifically activate a subset of chromosomes, kinetochores and microtubules while mitosis is proceeding. For laser ablation of mitotic structures as the centrioles and kinetochores, MicroPoint is your choice.

With Imaris for Cell Biologists, a multitude of analysis tools are available to create 3D renderings of mitosis as well as to plot the analysis of events such as chromosome congression or metaphase to anaphase transition timing.

Organelles are subcellular structures delimited by a membrane, which are specialized in specific tasks in the eukaryotic cell. Organelles include the nucleus, mitochondria, endoplasmic reticulum, chloroplasts, etc.

Andor Dragonfly and highly sensitive camera Ixon EMCCD are ideal for studying organelle bidirectional movements such as mitochondria and lysosome movements. For vesicle trafficking and fusion events, Andor Dragonfly coupled with the small pixel size Sona and SRRF-stream licence will deliver the resolution required for such experiments. Fast imaging of calcium waves can be captured with Andor Benchtop Confocal. Ultra-fast imaging of Endoplasmic Reticulum-calcium signalling can be captured with Dragonfly coupled to a Sona/Zyla sCMOs camera.

Further, the detailed structural analysis of 3D organelles such as mitochondria using 3D-dSTORM the solution is imaging with Andor Dragonfly and a Sona 6,5 micron Pixel camera.

Photoactivation of inner Golgi vesicles with Mosaic allows following vesicle trafficking of targeted events. As for nuclear DNA damage studies, MicroPoint is the ideal tool.

For data analysis, Imaris for Cell Biologists allows the quantification of organelle bidirectional movement, intra-organelle distance, also delivering spectacular 3D renderings and movies of the data.

Plant cell biology focus on a broad area of research in which the model organism are plants or plant cells. The area encompasses various subjects such as cellular structures and function, molecular and cellular mechanisms, inter-organelle communication and intracellular signalling, etc.

Andor offers a broad range of solutions for plant cell biologists. The Andor benchtop confocal is the ideal choice for more typical imaging applications such as live-cell imaging and fixed tissue sample analysis. When imaging high background plant samples, researchers can take advantage of the Andor Dragonfly extended spectral range with excitation wavelengths up to 750 nm. TIRF imaging is ideal for minimising the high background (high autofluorescence) associated with plant tissues; it can be powerful when analysing membrane fusion events in plant cells. The detailed structural organisation of cortical microtubules in plant roots can be visualised with dSTORM. For live-cell super-resolution of endosomes and plasma membrane dynamics, Andor Dragonfly equipped with Sona 6,5 with SRRF-stream licence will be the ideal solution. Both the iKon-M CCD camera and the Ixon EMCCD deliver excellent results for plant Bioluminescence applications such as Circadian Clock regulated transcription.

Imaging analysis with Imaris Essentials allows the researchers to have an interactive visualisation of 3D snapshot and time-lapse images as well as generate quantitative information from the microscopy data.

Vesicle trafficking is a significant area of research in cell Biology; it extends from cell membrane to organelles and ensures cell communication with the external environment.

Andor offers a broad range of solutions to tackle vesicle trafficking challenges. For cell surface events of endo and exocytosis, using Andor Dragonfly in TIRF mode coupled to a Sona 6,5 sCMOS camera will deliver maximum resolution. Dual camera simultaneous imaging option allows simultaneous observation of the different players in the endocytic event, as the constituent of clathrin-coated vesicles (dynamin, AP-2, actin fibres, …). To follow the endocytic from membrane fusion till late lysosome formation process inside the cell with high temporal and spatial resolution, researchers can take advantage of Dragonfly speed coupled with SRRF-Stream for live-cell super-resolution. The extreme sensitivity of our iXon EMCCD cameras will allow very low light imaging, dramatically minimising phototoxicity.

Imaris for Cell Biologists allows automatic detection and quantification of vesicles in 3D over time.