Wordkstation for high speed and resolution imaging of living animals by confocal multiphoton laser scanning microscopy.

Intravital microscopy by multiphoton laser scanning microscopy represents a new exciting field of biological imaging. Thanks to its ability to penetrate living tissues, this technique potentially allows studying biological processes in the complex environment represented by living animals, which nowadays is a challenging task for many biological investigations. One example is the study of the vascular system, on which VRC and CMVB focus they research activity: due to its dependence by multiple factors (blood flow, oxygenation, action of multiple cell types from the immune system and surrounding tissues), the function of the vasculature needs to be investigated in physiological conditions which are reproducible only in part with in vitro or ex-vivo models. Recent progresses in optics and laser science open to the possibility to perform imaging by multiphoton laser scanning microscopy with unprecedented levels of resolution and sensitivity. The creation of this imaging workstation will allow to obtain high-resolution 4D images (3D over time) of living tissues and to use specific probes to measure changes of physiological parameters (oxygenation, vessel permeability, etc.).

Keywords:Multiphoton, Confocal, Animals, Workstation

Disciplines:Genetics, Systems biology, Molecular and cell biology