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Platform for Imaging Cells and Tissues (PICT)

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Picture credit: Aurore Delsoir

Technical and scientific expertise

  • Wide-field, confocal, multiphoton and super-resolution fluorescence microscopy
  • Vital confocal microscopy and immunolabelling methods
  • User training in:

- a wide range of microscopy methods
- independent and critical use of different microscopes

  • Advice, expertise and support for users, from sample preparation to analysis of results and interpretation of data

Main equipment

  • Two high-speed fluorescence slide scanners
  • Two wide-field fluorescence microscopes (Life Cell Observer Z1 and Stereomicroscope Discovery V12)
  • One high-throughput confocal microscope (Zeiss Spinning disk confocal COSD)
  • One Fast Airyscan-2 microscope coupled to a super-resolution module and equipped with a multiphoton laser (Zeiss LSM980-multiphoton)
  • Various sample preparation equipment and image analysis tools (HALO, Arivis, Zen blue, SymphoTime, 3D Deconvolution)

Applications

  • Imaging of:

- living cells and immunostaining
- organs (liver, kidneys) in living mice
- tissues and organs for several hours
- extracellular matrix by Second Harmonic Generation Microscopy (SHG)
- cellular environment by Fluorescence Lifetime Imaging Microscopy (FLIM)

  • Dynamics of molecular movement by fluorescence recovery after photobleaching (FRAP)
  • Protein dimerisation by bimolecular fluorescence complementation (BiFC)
  • In situ detection of free radicals (ROS) in distinct subcellular compartments
  • Protein interactions by FRET-FLIM
  • Super-resolution on living and fixed cells
  • Whole slide scanning
  • Image analysis such as deconvolution, 3-D reconstruction, morphometry, objective colocalisation

Services available to

  • UCLouvain students and researchers
  • UCLouvain partner university researchers

The latest news

  • 14 September 2022
    PICT: Focus on the Airyscan confocal microscope coupled with a multiphoton laser
    It is adapted for the analysis of a wide range of biological samples, from isolated proteins, small vesicles and single cells to tissues and living mice. It gives excellent results in colocalization studies, spectral analysis and visualization of thick samples.