Zeiss Laser Scanning Module Doubles Experimental Versatility

Zeiss Laser Scanning Module Doubles Experimental Versatility Parallel laser stimulation and scanning adds flexible photobleaching and high speed scanning to Zeiss laser scanning microscopes.

The Zeiss LSM DuoScan radically expands the frontiers in live cell imaging, combining unprecedented speed, accuracy, sensitivity, specimen penetration and flexibility with minimal specimen damage. The innovative module adds a second laser scanner to the award-winning LSM 510 META or LSM 5 LIVE laser scanning microscopes. The dual-output, independently-adjustable lasers allow simultaneous stimulation and confocal observation while optional multi-photon microscopy preserves living tissue allowing observation without photodamage.

"Capturing fast cellular reactions occurring during or immediately after photomanipulation without a time lag will open up applications such as FRAP, FLIP, FLAP, photoactivation, photoconversion and uncaging to further development," says Aubrey Lambert, Zeiss UK marketing manager. "All rely on flexible sample photomanipulation to push back the frontiers of biomedical science and LSM DuoScan is the perfect partner."

The LSM DuoScan's point scanner offers a high degree of flexibility in photobleaching and can define multiple regions of interest (ROI) with pixel accuracy in all photomanipulation applications. This ensures that areas outside the area chosen for photobleaching are not damaged. High speed FRAP and FLIP experiments can be conducted at a variety of wavelengths, even when used with fast, parallel, multi-channel image acquisition. Accurate ROI micromanipulation also ensures excellent precision and flexibility in photoactivation, photoconversion and uncaging experiments.

Selective activation of fluorescent proteins is a further experimental possibility opened up by the LSM DuoScan photomanipulation unit. Defined sub-populations of proteins, whole organelles or even cells in a tissue context labelled with fluorescent proteins such as PA-GFP, Dona or Kneed can be selectively activated or converted by local irradiation with violet light. New powerful 405-nm diode lasers, shared by the imaging and photomanipulation modules and controlled by a comfortable and powerful ROI-Bleach user interface, are ideally suited for such applications. Two system versions of the LSM DuoScan are available: the LSM 510 META DuoScan and the LSM 5 LIVE DuoScan.