Cell-tracking system

Abstract

Isolated cells are often chosen for study rather than whole tissues because they can sufficiently represent systems of great complexity. However, conducting experiments with isolated cells is greatly hampered since the available environment is, at first sight, disorganized, due to random cell positioning. Finding a way to improve the performance of the experiments and to enable the organization and selection of an adequate experimental sample population is of great value to researchers. The present work describes a system for tracking isolated cells based on the controlled automation of the charriot of a microscope, in order to streamline and simplify this procedure. A microscope was adapted, from non-inverted to inverted, and stepper motors were coupled to its stage so that, by means of toothed belts, their movements were transmitted to the charriot axes, which became microcontrolled with the aid of a control system consisting of a joystick and 12 buttons. The new system allowed tracking suitable cells by memorizing their initial positions and later moving the charriot back to the stored coordinates. We believe that this is a practical and relatively simple solution that can be easily reproduced in other research laboratories.