Assistant Professor Hideharu Mikami and Professor Keisuke Goda of the University of Tokyo have developed a technology that applies information and communication technology to increase the imaging speed of a confocal fluorescence microscope, which is indispensable for observing living organisms, by an order of magnitude.We succeeded in observing biological samples at a speed of 1 frames per second.
In biology and medicine, a confocal fluorescence microscope (Note) is indispensable for observing biological samples such as cells and tissues.This microscope makes it possible to observe only the targeted part of a complex biological sample and to observe fine structures of 1 micron or less.However, the conventional confocal fluorescence microscope has a very slow imaging speed, and it is difficult to acquire a large number of images in a short time or to capture the state of a biological sample changing at a high speed.
This time, using information and communication technology called "frequency division multiplexing" or "quadrature amplitude modulation", the imaging time is greatly reduced by capturing the fluorescent signals emitted from different locations of the biological sample together.As a result, we succeeded in acquiring an observation image of a biological sample at an extremely high speed of 1 frames per second.The image acquisition speed of the conventional confocal fluorescence microscope is several frames to several tens of frames per second, which is about 1 times faster this time.
By applying this technology, we succeeded in capturing Euglena's 3D underwater behavior at a high speed of 104 frames per second (60 frames per second for general TV images) for the first time in the world.Furthermore, while aligning the cell population and flowing it in the fluid at high speed, individual images of a huge amount of about 5,000 cells are acquired and analyzed in a short time, and cell samples (mouse leukocytes) prepared under different conditions are prepared. ) Was demonstrated to be able to be identified with a high accuracy of about 99%.
By using the technology developed this time, it is expected to be applied to various fields such as diagnosis of cancer cells, search for biofuels, and capture of high-speed changes in the three-dimensional structure of living organisms, and new discoveries in basic science. ..
Note: A microscope that irradiates a fluorescently treated sample with laser light to obtain a fluorescent image of the sample.
Paper information:[Optica] Ultrafast confocal fluorescence microscopy beyond the fluorescence lifetime limit
