Development of a fluorescent microscope combined with a real-time autoradiography system

Citation

Rai, Hiroki, Satomi Kanno, Yoshitake Hayashi, Naoto Nihei, and Tomoko M. Nakanishi. “Development of a Fluorescent Microscope Combined with a Real-time Autoradiography System.” RADIOISOTOPES, vol. 57, no. 6, 2008, pp. 355–60. 

Keywords

• real-time autoradiography
• radioisotope-fluorescent microscope
• tapered fiber optic plate
• beta ray imaging
• fluorescent protein
• calcium-45

Brief

A new microscope system combines real-time autoradiography with fluorescence microscopy to enable the imaging of radioisotope distribution (for example, ⁴⁵Ca) at the cellular level in plant tissues. This system allows researchers to acquire bright-field, fluorescent, and autoradiograph images simultaneously.

Summary

A team of researchers developed a new microscope system that combines real-time autoradiography with fluorescence microscopy. This allows researchers to acquire autoradiograph images of labeled signals (low molecular weight) alongside fluorescent and bright-field images. The system was tested by observing sliced soybean stalks traced with ⁴⁵CaCl. The team's goal in developing this system was to provide a new tool for studying signal transduction and gene expression.

• The researchers improved upon an existing real-time autoradiography system for this application.
• The system uses a CsI(Ti) scintillator, the thickness of which was adjusted for higher resolution.
• A tapered fiber optic plate is also used to magnify the autoradiograph image.
• The system was able to detect the distribution of ⁴⁵Ca in the soybean stalk at the single-cell level.
• The researchers believe this system will be useful for studying signal transduction and gene expression in conjunction with fluorescent protein techniques such as GFP.

 Origin: https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/radioisotopes/57/6/57_6_355/_pdf