New Microscope Enables Real-Time 3-D Movies of Developing Embryos [Slide Show]
A European lab combines "light sheet" microscopy with an illumination process that subtracts the static caused by scattered photons to devise a way to clearly observe the inner workings of cells over a period of days
New Microscope Enables Real-Time 3-D Movies of Developing Embryos [Slide Show]
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Fly-by-Light The early development of the fruit fly is shown at 3.2, 4.85, 8.15, and 11 hours after fertilization. The light sheet microscope technology has been licensed to optics company Carl Zeiss, but until a commercial version hits the market, biologists looking to try the technique will have to build the scopes themselves... Philipp Keller
See-Through Flies The latest breakthrough, published in Nature Methods , is the addition of structured illumination to light sheet microscopy. This allows biologists to subtract out static from scattered photons and get clear pictures of samples that are largely opaque, like the highly opaque fruit fly embryo shown here at 3.2 and 4.85 hours after fertilization... Philipp Keller
Half-and-Half
The raw data used to build the digital model [ right hemisphere ] are matched up with the model [ left hemisphere ] at about five, six, 10 and 14 hours after fertilization... Philipp Keller
Dividing to Multiply
The nuclei in these images are color-coded according the direction they are traveling. After a cell divides the daughter cells go in separate directions, appearing as streaks of different colors moving away from one another... Philipp Keller
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Micro Matrix
Twelve hours after fertilization the cells have arranged themselves in a pattern that is just beginning to resemble the body they will become. The empty space just below the center of the embryo is the closing blastopore, where the fish's tail will form... Philipp Keller
Nuclear Proliferation
Using a fluorescent microscopy technique that allows long viewing times and exceptionally clear images, scientists can now track each cell in a growing embryo, creating a digital model of development... Philipp Keller
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