Lecture 2- Microscopes Flashcards
What did Antony Van Leeuwenhoek do?
Saw protozoa and bacteria for the first time
1838
Who came up with cell theory?
Schleider and Schwann… in 1838
big gap from 1600s and 1800s bc textile revolution lead to dyes
Reticular vs. Neuronal Theory
Reticular theory: neurons are not cells (like vascular network)
Neuronal theory: neurons are cells but atypical
100 microns
can see with eye, plant cell
10 microns
typical animal cell
can be seen with light microscope
1 micron
mitochondria, bacteria
can be seen w light microscope
100 nm
viruses and ribosomes
can be seen with electron microscope
10 nm
proteins
can be seen with electron microscope
1 nm
molecules
can be seen with electron microscope
What are the two major choices when selecting a microscope?
- Which microscope to select (there are several, each with its own niche)
- How to process cells tissue (fixing/staining)
What is a fixed cell?
cell that has been chemically treated to preserve its structure and essentially “kill” it, making it suitable for staining
What is resolution?
the ability of a microscope to distinguish details of a specimen or sample. It’s defined as the minimum distance between two distinct points on a specimen that can still be seen as separate entities by the observer or microscope camera
ability to see two dots as distinct from each other
if resolution increases, a single dot will be seen as two smaller dots
What did Abbe do?
One year after beginning the manufacture of the Carl Zeiss
compound microscope, in 1873, Ernst Abbe released a scientific paper describing the mathematics leading to the perfection of this wonderful invention. For the first time in optical design, aberration, diffraction and coma were described and understood. Abbe described the optical process so well that this paper has become the foundation upon which much of our understanding of optical science rests today. As a reward for his efforts Carl Zeiss made
Abbe a partner in his burgeoning business in 1876.
What is Abbe’s equation
math describing theoretical resolution
Theoretical vs practical limit of resolution
- Theoretical: Abbe’s equation, tell u the best resolution a microscope could acheive
- Practical: What can actually be acheived, as cells aren’t good canidates so you can’t see as much as theoretical
How was Abbe’s rule overcome?
Eric Betzig, Stefan W. Hell and William E. Moerner are awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry 2014 for having
bypassed a presumed scientific limitation stipulating that an optical microscope can never yield a resolution better than 0.2 micrometres. Using the fluorescence of molecules, scientists can now monitor the interplay between individual molecules inside cells; they can observe disease-related proteins aggregate and they can track cell division at the nanolevel.
superresolution microscopy
Why are cells bad candidates to be viewed under a microscope?
- Cells are mostly water, have little contrast
- cells are organic cells that absorb light, which leads to heat, which leads to movement
Abbe’s equation (formula)
d=.61 wavelength/nsin(theta)
d=resolution
relationship between d and λ
- D (resolution) is roughly half the wavelength of the imaging radiation
Super resolution microscopy
- Super-resolution microscopy (SRM) is a technique that uses fluorescence microscopy to image cellular structures with more detail than conventional optical microscopy. SRM can achieve resolutions up to 20 times greater than conventional light microscopy, which has a resolution limit of about 200 nanometers
Is not limited by Abbe’s equation
What ways is the problem of contrast in microscopy overcome?
- Dyes (colorimetric and fluorochromes)
- Light Manipulation (ex. phase and DIC)
- Computer enhancement
What is hematoxylin?
primarily used in histology as a stain to color cell nuclei a deep blue-purple color
colorimetric dye
What is eosin?
an acidic dye that stains the cytoplasm, muscle, and connective tissues in various shades of pink and orange
colorimetric dye
Light microscope resolution limit
0.2 microns
Electron microscope resolution limit
2.4 angstroms
Who was Carl Zeiss
Businessman who worked with Abbe to refine microscopy (Zeiss optics)
Clarapath Introduces Robotic Tissue AI Processing/Staining System
- Clarapath said pathology labs currently rely on labor intensive, manual procedures to process tissue specimes for purposes of diagnosing cancer and other diseases.
- Faced with labor shortages, quality control challenges, and rapidly increasing sample volumes, pathology labs seek to improve the reliability and efficiency of creating glass slides for pathological review
partners w mayo clinic
Bright-field microscopy physical properties
- light from a tungsten lamp is focused on the specimen by a condenser lense below the stage
- light travels yellow pathway
What is the oldest yet most often used type of microscopy?
bright field microscopy
Who uses bright field microscopy?
- pathologists
- cytochemists
- for dead tissue sections or dead cells
Steps to prepare cells for bright field microscopy
- Fixation (killing cells to keep in lifelike state using chemicals like formaldehyde, which cross links proteins)
- Dehydration (remove water but replace w ethanol)
- Xylene replacement (makes tissue transparent and easier to read on slides)
- Parrafin Infiltration (replace xylene with paraffin, results in wax block w tissue held in stasis, allowing sections to be cut)
- Microtome cuts slices 10-15 microns
- Put sections on slide
- Remove wax, put cell back in water
Examples using bright field microscopy
- retina
- thyroid gland
- Covid lung fibrosis (can see lymphocytes and scar tissue)
- Basal cell carcinoma (skin cancer islands)
Cryostat use
- often used in operating rooms for quick analysis
- not typical for pathology
- ex. Moh’s surgery (for melanoma, skin removed in consecutive rings until margin is found, rings are quickly analyzed)
rather than paraffin, sections are quickly frozen
Who uses phase-contrast microscopy?
cell culture biologists
What is the main purpose of phase microscopy?
To look at living cells without fixation or dyes
good for single cells or thin cell layers, byt not thick tissues… particularly useful for examining the location and movement of larger organelles in live cells
How does phase microscopy work?
- Contrast created by light interference
- Recombines refracted and unrefracted light
- If light is in sync (in phase), it is made brighter
- If light is out of sync (out of phase), it is diminished
What did Robert Hooke do?
first to see cells- named them after monk’s quarters
Differential Interference Contrast/Nomarski
- used for living cells
- different from phase bc u get a 3D image
Differential Interference contrast applications
- Single cell electrophysiology (use pipette and poke cell to look at change in membrane potential)
- Patch clamping (Monitors ion flow through single cell membrane channels inside out and outside-out)
Darkfield microscopy
- Used by microbiologists
- Dark field w bright image
- not increasing resolution, but increasing contrast w dark background
- can see bacteria very clearly, better than bright field/phase
How does polarizing light microscopy work
- Light passes through a polarizer (only light of one plane passes through)
- Polarized light hits specimen
- Highly ordered parallel specimen changes light
- changed light is observed to show specimen
What is polarizing light microscopy used for
- neurobiologists (microtubules)
- muscle cell biologists (actin/myosin)
- both are highly ordered structures
Why do microscopes have multiple capabilities in one machine
- allows for overloads of images
Why was confocal microscopy a revolution?
- greatly increased the theoretical limit of resolution
- governed by abbes equation still