Olympus has introduced the LV200 Luminoview Bio-luminescence microscope (BLM) to its advanced live cell imaging range
The LV200 is a quantum leap in luminescence microscopy and features a highly specialised optical design to maximise light collection, enable dual-colour luminescence, as well as provide brightfield and fluorescence overlays.
The first commercially available luminescent microscope, the LV200 boasts full environmental control for long term live cell imaging, providing unprecedented sensitivity and resolution whatever the magnification.
The Olympus LV200 Luminoview provides peerless bio-luminescence microscopy imaging for small organisms and slice cultures as well as at the single cell scale.
Bio-Luminescence imaging has great advantages over fluorescence imaging since it combines a high signal-to-noise (S/N) ratio with no background luminescence or phototoxic effects.
What is more, only viable cells emit luminescence signals, and measurements are absolute and directly quantitative.
However, in microscopy, luminescent light is not as bright as fluorescence, and has therefore required expensive and often complex imaging systems - until now.
The LV200 Luminoview has been carefully designed using Olympus's expert knowledge of the optical and experimental requirements for live cell bio-luminescence microscopy (BML):.
The optics of the LV200 are designed to provide the straightest path and shortest distance between the object and the camera, to ensure that as much light as possible reaches the CCD chip.
Therefore there are no additional mirrors, filters or lenses to absorb the low levels of light that are emitted through bio-luminescence.
Furthermore, the extremely high NA of the tube lens affords a vast increase in sensitivity compared to a conventional microscope system.
The LV200 optics produce signal outputs many times higher than traditional systems and therefore uses a conventional CCD or EM-CCD camera.
In addition, the LV200 has integrated excitation and emission filter wheels to enable dual-colour luminescence and transmission fluorescence.
These unique optical properties also ensure that high magnification objectives can be used, with suitable camera integration times, to provide exquisite single cell resolution not previously possible with luminescence imaging.
