Widefield Microscopy

MNI Widefield Microscopy Facility

Welcome to the MNI Widefield Facility. This is a jointly-operated facilitiy between the Heit, Dikeakos and Kerfoot labs which provides users with access microscopes, analysis computers, and a cryostat for sample preparation. All users must be registered and trained prior to using any equipment in the facility. A full description of the available equipment and its capabilities can be found below.

Booking Calendar
Please note that we have transitioned to a new callendaring system, and that log-in details were not transfered. Please contact Angela Vreize for your new account information
MNI Widefield
Facility

Training & Fees

MNI Widefield Facility fee & training schedule (PDF, August 2019)

Widefield Microscope Manual (PDF, April 2014)

Widefield Microscope

The widefield microscope is a custom-designed Leica DMI6000 system intended for high and super-resolution imaging of living cells. This system features:

  • 40x/1.30 NA, 63x/1.40 NA and 100x/1.40NA objectives.
  • A heated live-cell stage with humidified air/CO2 perfusion.
  • Adaptive focus control and autofocus capabilities.
  • A high sensitivity EM-CCD camera capable of frame rates of up to 50 FPS.
  • A large field of view CMOS camera.
  • Tiling and point-visiting capabilities. 
  • Chroma Sedat Quad rapid filter set. 50 ms switching times between channels, with filters for DAPI, FITC, Cy3 and Cy5
  • Secondary filter set for FITC ratiometric imaging and CFP/YFP FRET.
  • DIC white light imaging
  • Capable of multi-colour SRRF super-resolution microscopy

Tissue Imaging Microscope

The tissue imaging microscope is built for generating large, tiled immunofluorescence, immunocytochemistry, and stained images of tissue sections. It features:

  • A range of low- and medium-magnification lenses
  • DAPI, FITC, Cy3 and Cy5 channels
  • 16-bit and colour CMOS cameras
  • Advanced tiling and zoom capabilities

Cryostat

We have a Leica CM18602 cryostat for cutting frozen sections as part of the preparation process for immunostaining or immunohistochemistry.

Deconvolution Computer

This is a dedicated 2-chip Xeon workstation for performing deconvolution and 3D rendering of images acquired on the DMI6000 widefield system using Leica LAS-X software.

Note: access to this resource is limited during Westerns COVID-19 limited work capacity. Contact Dr. Heit if you require access to this resource.

Analysis Computer (Tux)

This is a high-powered analysis workstation built for general image processing tasks. This station runs Ubuntu Linux and has the following software packages installed:

Image Processing:

Bioinformatics, Statistics & Transcriptomics:
Note: access to this resource is limited during Westerns COVID-19 limited work capacity. Contact Dr. Heit if you require access to this resource.

Imaris Workstation

This is a high-powered workstation for performing image analysis using Imaris software. 

Note: access to this resource is limited during Westerns COVID-19 limited work capacity. Contact Dr. Heit if you require access to this resource.