Access to equipment: Sectioning equipment is in BRC05A. Please sign up by emailing amie.severino@nih.gov and the space will be reserved for you. All first-time users will receive training before using the equipment.
Training:
- Sectioning tissue: The Histology and Imaging Core offers training in sectioning brain and tissue samples (minimum thickness = 5 µm).
- Histology and Molecular Methods: Mounting sections, counterstaining, in situ mRNA hybridization, and immunohistochemistry.
- Microscopy: Training is available for all microscopes, in optimizing image acquisition and image analysis (Image J, Imaris, LAS X).
Tissue sectioning
Brigthtfield and Epifluorescence Microscopy
Olympus MVX10
- The Olympus MVX10 is a dissection-style stereoscopic microscope. It is excellent for taking pictures of injection sites and electrode placement at low magnification.
- 63x and 2x objectives, with secondary adjustment increments from 0.63 to 6.3x.
- Allows for fluorescence detection of up to 3 fluorophores. Detection of Fluorogold, DAPI, DyLight 405, GFP, AlexaFluor488, FITC, tdTomato, mCherry, TRITC, AlexaFluor596, CY5, CY7 and AlexaFluor790 dyes has been validated.
Leica DMi8 Thunder
- **Training Video**
- The Leica Thunder microscope has a fully motorized stage and can image in 3-d to acquire tiles for mosaic stitching of large images with a z-stack.
- Up to 6 channels can be acquired, using either incident light or transmitted light for BF, DIC and fluorescent microscopy (a fluorophore library is included for easy acquisition parameter determination) and an LED light source.
- 5x, 20x (dry), 25x (water), 40x (water) and 63x (oil) objectives.
- The LAS X application suite allows for image post-processing using deconvolution algorithms for computational clearing and enhancing the resolution of nanometer scale structures.
Keyence Scanner BZ-X710
- **Training video**
- The Keyence BZ-X710 is a user-friendly fluorescent microscope.
- Can perform multidimensional capture (with a z-stack) of full slides and tissue sections with excellent tile stitching of mosaic images.
- This scanner can image in up to 4 channels, has a motorized stage with autofocus and stage pre-loading of up to 4-slides at once allows for quick fluorescent imaging. Live cell imaging is also possible.
- 2x, 4x, 10x, 20x objectives.
Olympus BX53 with TurboScan image acquisition
- This microscope has an automatized stage, can form stitched mosaic images (4x, 10x, 20x and 40x) and is equipped with a QImaging color camera.
Olympus VS120, Virtual Slide Scanner
- The VS-120 scanner can take pictures of multiple sections per slide and of multiple slides.
- It is equipped with color and monochrome cameras.
- Large mosaic images can be acquired at 10x, 20x and 40x.
- 5 fluorophores can be imaged, including widely used fluorophores and fluorescence proteins (Fluorogold, DAPI, DyLight 405, GFP, AlexaFluor488, FITC, tdTomato, mCherry, TRICT, AlexaFluor596, CY5, CY7 and AlexaFluor790).
Light-sheet microscopy
- This microscope allows for fast 3d imaging of fluorescence.
- Can image up to 7 fluorophores (green, red, far-red and infrared fluorophores)
- Optimal for SHIELD and CLARITY imaging of large-volume optically cleared samples using laser light-sheets.
Image Analysis
Histology Core has three computers for open use of NIDA IRP researchers. Sign-up calendars are next to each computer. Software includes ImageJ, Adobe Photoshop and Illustrator, MATLAB, Imaris, VS Desktop, GraphPad and GitBash.