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Fluorescence microscopy applications

A composite picture of a regenerating mouse pancreas. Exocrine cells that re-arrange are shown in green (amylase), vessels are seen in red (smooth muscle actin), and a pancreatic islet containing insulin (shown in blue) is also present.
Fluorescence microscopy is a commonly used method of light microscopy, especially in life science microscopy, where wavelength specific fluorochromes are imaged. Individual images of different fluorescing species can be captured and combined (color channel arithmetic) into a composite micrograph showing co-localization information.

Fluorescence microscopy is known for its low light level conditions and is in fact conducted under conditions of the lowest light level of any form of light microscopy. Therefore one also encounters the need for the longest exposure times and therefore also encounters the highest need to increase the signal to noise ratios (more signal with less thermionic noise). A researcher can reduce the noise level dramatically via the use of a cooled, usually Peltier-type, camera. Hence we believe that anyone contemplating the use of fluorescence microscopy almost surely would want to be purchasing a cooled camera.

Note: For other situations, where low light levels are involved, one can extract more illumination out of the sample by using a monochrome camera (and one without the color filters, therefore), but in this case, since the final image is based so much on a color micrograph, one is restricted to the use of a cooled color camera.

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Monday December 01, 2008
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