A quantitative lattice light-sheet microscope: imaging molecules and intensities in embryos at high spatiotemporal resolution

The aim of the project is to developp a quantitative lattice light sheet fluorescence microscope. This instrument will permit sub-diffraction-limit resolution live imaging of large multicellular tissues, such as mammalian blastocysts and tissues, as well as single molecule tracking in cultured cells.

Currently, several prototypes of this microscope exist and have quickly become the state-of-the-art for wide-field imaging of large biological tissues at sub-diffraction-limit resolution. We propose to adapt a modified version of this instrument to interpret the acquired fluorescence intensities quantitatively, something that no other light-sheet microscope is currently capable of.

With these modifications the instrument will enable the imaging of the dynamics of sub-cellular structures and the use of fluorescence intensity values for precise measurements of transcriptional or synaptic activities, simultaneously, thereby directly linking structure to function.