This article proposes a new device named "Wireless Cellscope" that combining mobile phone and optical microscope together. The established wireless microscope platform consists of mobile phone, network monitor, miniaturized microscope or high resolution microscope etc. A series of conceptual experiments were performed on microscopic observation of ordinary objects and mice tumor tissue slices. It was demonstrated that, the new method could acquire microscopy images via a wireless way, which is spatially independent. With small size and low cost, the device thus developed has rather wide applicability in non-disturbing investigation of cell/tissue culture and long distance observation of dangerous biological sample etc.
Animals ; Cell Phone ; Mice ; Microscopy ; instrumentation ; methods ; Neoplasms ; Wireless Technology

Single molecule detection is a technology of studying biomolecules with high spatial and temporal resolution. By exploiting recent technical advances, we are able to observe, detect, even manipulate individual molecules and study their conformational changes and dynamic behaviors. New information can be obtained from the single molecule research, which is otherwise hidden or averaged out. In recent years, the development of single molecule detection techniques has opened up a new era of life science. In this review, we introduce the advances of the techniques for detecting single molecules in cell biology and review the development of single molecule detection in living cells.
Animals ; Biotechnology ; trends ; Cell Physiological Phenomena ; Humans ; Microscopy, Confocal ; methods ; Microscopy, Fluorescence ; instrumentation ; methods ; Molecular Biology ; instrumentation ; methods ; Nanotechnology ; instrumentation ; methods ; Proteins ; analysis ; ultrastructure

Sutures may cause endothelial trauma and occlusion. The vascular clip system (VCS) clip applier may minimize endothelial injury. Fourteen carotid arteries of nine adult rabbits were transected and re-anastomosed with either #7-0 polypropylene (Group I, n=8) or VCS clips (Group II, n=6). The animals were sacrificed at 1, 3, 8, 14, and 30 days postoperatively. The operation time and bleeding amount were checked for each anastomosis. Carotid angiograms, photography, H&E staining and scanning electron microscopy (SEM) were performed. Fibrin and thrombus, inflammatory cell infiltration, endothelial disruption, luminal distortion, fibrosis, and wall thickening were compared. The luminal diameter was greater in group II. There were minimal differences in thrombosis, wall thickening and fibrosis between the two groups. However, fibrin, inflammatory cell infiltration, multinucleated giant cell formation, endothelial disruption, and luminal distortion were greater in group I. On SEM, group I showed trans-mural penetration. In contrast, group II showed suture margin eversion and no transmural penetration. Stenosis was greater in group I than in group II on carotid angiogram. The operation time was shorter in group II than in group I, i.e. 5+/-1.4 min vs. 11+/-3.8 min, respectively. The current data showed similar or superior results with VCS clips in comparison to conventional suturing with polypropylene.
Angiography ; Animal ; Arteriovenous Shunt, Surgical/*instrumentation/methods ; Carotid Arteries/pathology/*surgery/ultrastructure ; Microscopy, Electron, Scanning ; Rabbits ; Surgical Stapling/*instrumentation/methods

We propose an algorithm for segmentation of the overlapped leukocyte in the microscopic cell image. The histogram of the saturation channel in the cell image is smoothed to obtain the meaningful global valley point by the fingerprint smoothing method, and then the nucleus can be segmented. A circular region, containing the entire regions of the leukocyte, is marked off according to the equivalent sectional radius of the nucleus. Then, the edge of the overlapped leukocyte is represented by polar coordinates. The overlapped region by the change of the polar angle of the edge pixels is determined, and the closed edge of the leukocyte integrating the gradient information of the overlapped region is reconstructed. Finally, the leukocyte is exactly extracted. The experimental results show that our method has good performance in terms of recall ratio, precision ratio and pixel error ratio.
Algorithms ; Cell Adhesion ; Humans ; Image Enhancement ; instrumentation ; methods ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; instrumentation ; methods ; Leukocytes ; cytology ; Microscopy

In this paper, GLUT4 vesicles are observed in real-time under TIRF microscopy and a new three-dimensional single particle tracking algorithm according to the unique features of TIRF is put forward. Firstly a fluorescence correction procedure was processed to solve the problem of fluorescence bleaching over time and mobile vesicles were segmented by an adaptive background subtraction method. Kalman filtering was then introduced to track the granules so as to reduce the searching range and to avoid the disturbance of background noise and false targets. In the experiments the algorithm was applied in analyzing the long-distance movement of GLUT4 vesicles. The experimental results indicate that the algorithm has achieved robust tracking of the vesicles in the imaging plane and has effectively calculated the position in the direction orthogonal to the imaging plane.
Glucose Transporter Type 4 ; metabolism ; Imaging, Three-Dimensional ; instrumentation ; methods ; Ion Transport ; Microscopy, Fluorescence ; methods

This article, introduces setting up of reflectance confocal microscope which is divided into four parts: optical system, scanning system, detecting system and software controlling system. This reflectance confocal microscope realizes in vivo epidermis tissue imaging in mouse skin as well as disease diagnosis related cell parameters measurement.
Animals ; Diagnostic Imaging ; instrumentation ; methods ; Microscopy, Confocal ; methods ; Rats ; Skin ; Software

After extracting definition measurements by different focus functions from the images, a novel autofocus algorithm which combines them with principal component analysis (PCA) and considers the first principal component as the final measurement, is presented in this paper. The experiment results with 70 groups of images show that this algorithm increases the difference between the definition measurements of the images and provides higher focusing accuracy in comparison with other single ones.
Algorithms ; Image Processing, Computer-Assisted ; methods ; Microscopy ; instrumentation ; methods ; Principal Component Analysis

Conformations of surface atoms in various stages of nanogold-based genechip testing were scanned by the atomic force microscope based on the scanning tunneling microscope. The findings were: First, the surface atoms of genechip slide (formylphenyl glass) were in a regular porous-arrangement; Second, after combination with probe, the regular porous arrangement changed to be irregular; Third, after hybridization with the target nucleic acid, the surface atoms were once again in a cable-like arrangement which was relatively structured and intensively cross-parallel. However, after the silver staining, the surface atoms showed a larger block structure with serious unevenness. From these results we can intuitively know the process and differences in probe combination, nucleic acid hybridization, and silver staining. Moreover, the relevant experiment was verified at the micro-level.
Gold ; Metal Nanoparticles ; chemistry ; Microscopy, Atomic Force ; methods ; Microscopy, Scanning Tunneling ; methods ; Molecular Conformation ; Nanotechnology ; methods ; Oligonucleotide Array Sequence Analysis ; instrumentation ; methods ; Particle Size ; Surface Properties

Various methods have been used to investigate the hair shaft. In the ultrastructural hair field, scanning and transmission electron microscopies are widely used investigative methods, but they have some technical limitations. Recently, X-ray microscopes with sub-micron spatial resolution have emerged as useful instruments because they offer a unique opportunity to observe the interior of an undamaged sample in greater detail. In this report, we examined damaged hair shaft tips using hard X-ray microscopy with a 90 nm spatial resolution. The results of this study suggest that hard X-ray microscopy is an alternative investigative method for hair morphology studies.
Adult ; Female ; Hair/*pathology ; Humans ; Microscopy/instrumentation/*methods ; Reproducibility of Results ; *X-Rays

Animals ; Fluorescence ; Humans ; Microscopy, Fluorescence ; Nanotechnology ; Neoplasms ; diagnosis ; Photons ; Quantum Dots ; Staining and Labeling ; instrumentation ; methods