Cell imaging facility
The imaging facility of the Arnaud de Villeneuve campus provides the scientific community with a variety of state-of-the-art light microscopy and cytometry equipment, enabling imaging at different scales by complementary methods. The core-facility is located on the basement of the Institute of Human Genetics. The team is composed of 4 engineers taking care of user training and support in image acquisition and data analysis, carrying out regular inspections of equipment and ensuring ongoing development of the imaging facility equipment.
For optimization of your imaging strategy and associated experimental design, whatever your expectations in terms of resolution, as well as for your data analysis, we invite you to contact the team, from the first stages of your work (contact link opposite).
The imaging facility of the Arnaud de Villeneuve campus is part of the MRI (Montpellier Ressources Imagerie) multi-site technological facility of BioCampus (UMS3426). The facility is certified ISO 9001 and NFX50-900 and IBiSA (Infrastructure in Biology Health and Agronomy) and is member of the France-BioImaging network.
A detailed list of all these services is available on the website of the facility.
Light microscopy
Marie-Pierre Blanchard
Head of the light microscopy facility
The light microscopy facility offers upright wide-field epifluorescence microscopes equipped with structured illumination modules (ApoTome) to improve spatial resolution. Most of those microscopes are equipped of motorized stages which allow large mosaics image acquisition as well as mark & find mode. Additional wide-field microscopes are fully configured for live-imaging in fluorescence and/or brightfield. These inverted microscopes have environmental chambers for control of temperature, humidity, CO2 and O2. For imaging of fixed or live samples at higher resolution, the core facility provides users with two laser-scanning confocal microscopes equipped with high sensitivity detectors.
The light microscopy facility covers the whole range of currently super-resolution microscopies. An OMX microscope, under the supervision of a dedicated engineer, combines various super-resolution imaging modalities: 2D- and 3D-SIM (Structured Illumination Microscopy) in multiple wavelengths (maximum of 4) which ensues in lateral and axial resolutions about 120nm and 340nm respectively (depending on the wavelengths), ring-TIRF imaging as well as localization-based super-resolution imaging methods PALM, STORM (lateral resolution up to 20nm). Finally, a STED microscope recently entered the facility. This super-resolution system allows the imaging at nanoscopic scale, with a lateral resolution of up to 30nm in 2D-STED and 75nm in 3D-STED. Three-color STED imaging is achieved by two depletion laser lines.
As regards with the cytometry facility, we offer flow cytometry analyzers and sorters. The systems have been chosen taking into account the ergonomics so users can be fully autonomous after a dedicated training. The core-facility allows users to analyze and/or sort cells (two populations or cloning through sorting in multi-well plates) of larger objects such as embryos or cell clusters.
All data generated by the any of those workstations may be further processed and analyzed on dedicated computers (deconvolution, 3D rendering, 3D processing and measurements, analysis automatization,…) using specific software packages using standard or custom made protocols (Huygens, Imaris, CellProfiler, ImageJ, FlowJo,…).
Flow cytometry
Amélie Sarrazin
Head of the flow cytometry core facility
The flow cytometry core facility provides the scientific community with flexible and userfriendly multi-parameter analyser and flow cytometry (cell?) sorter.
After training by the MRI engineer in charge of the facility, both set-up might be run by autonomous users on their own, coming from inside but also outside the institute. The MacsQuant analyser (Miltenyi) is equipped with three laser lines (405nm, 488nm, 635nm), eight detectors and an automatic sampler.
The FACS Melody sorter (BD) allows sorting of populations from a cell suspension, separation of two cell populations or cloning by sorting on multi-well plates. It is equipped with 3 lasers (405nm, 488nm and 561 nm).
More information are available on our website: MRI… A workstation dedicated to flow cytometry data analysis with FlowJo and Flowing software is provided to the facility users by the IGH.