automated live microscopy

Fluorescence microscopy is one of the most powerful tools to investigate complex cellular processes such as cell division, cell motility, or intracellular trafficking.

The availability of RNA interference (RNAi) technology and automated microscopy has opened the possibility to perform cellular imaging in functional genomics and other large-scale applications.

Although imaging often dramatically increases the content of a screening assay, it poses new challenges to achieve accurate quantitative annotation and therefore needs to be carefully adjusted to the specific needs of individual screening applications.

See also

 assay design
 large-scale RNAi screening
 microscope automation
 computational data analysis
 imaging-based RNAi screening

References

 Phenotypic profiling of the human genome by time-lapse microscopy reveals cell division genes. Neumann B, Walter T, Hériché JK, Bulkescher J, Erfle H, Conrad C, Rogers P, Poser I, Held M, Liebel U, Cetin C, Sieckmann F, Pau G, Kabbe R, Wünsche A, Satagopam V, Schmitz MH, Chapuis C, Gerlich DW, Schneider R, Eils R, Huber W, Peters JM, Hyman AA, Durbin R, Pepperkok R, Ellenberg J. Nature. 2010 Apr 1;464(7289):721-7. PMID: 20360735 [Free]

 Automated microscopy for high-content RNAi screening. Conrad C, Gerlich DW. J Cell Biol. 2010 Feb 22;188(4):453-61. PMID: 20176920 [Free]

 Automated live microscopy to study mitotic gene function in fluorescent reporter cell lines. Schmitz MH, Gerlich DW. Methods Mol Biol. 2009;545:113-34. PMID: 19475385