Picroscope: low-cost system for simultaneous longitudinal biological imaging

Abstract

Simultaneous longitudinal imaging across multiple conditions and replicates has been crucial for scientific studies aiming to understand biological processes and disease. Yet, imaging systems capable of accomplishing these tasks are economically unattainable for most academic and teaching laboratories around the world. Here, we propose the Picroscope, which is the first low-cost system for simultaneous longitudinal biological imaging made primarily using off-the-shelf and 3D-printed materials. The Picroscope is compatible with standard 24-well cell culture plates and captures 3D z-stack image data. The Picroscope can be controlled remotely, allowing for automatic imaging with minimal intervention from the investigator. Here, we use this system in a range of applications. We gathered longitudinal whole organism image data for frogs, zebrafish, and planaria worms. We also gathered image data inside an incubator to observe 2D monolayers and 3D mammalian tissue culture models. Using this tool, we can measure the behavior of entire organisms or individual cells over long-time periods.

Internet of Things Architecture for Cellular Biology

“…An outline of existing tools that utilize the platform described in this paper. (Assay) shows the Picroscope Ly et al (2021); Baudin et al (2021) for microscopy, the Piphys Voitiuk et al (2021) for electrophysiology recording, and a fully automated auto-culture system for media recording and replacement. (Infrastructure) shows the primary suite of tools introduced in section 2.2, 2.4 and 2.5 in this paper.…”

“…(Analysis) demos some of the reports produced as a result of the workflows that run as post-processing jobs. (the “Picroscope” and “Piphys” figures are adapted from Ly et al (2021); Baudin et al (2021) and Voitiuk et al (2021))…”

PiSpy: An Affordable, Accessible, and Flexible Imaging Platform for the Automated Observation of Organismal Biology and Behavior

“…Raspberry Pis can connect to a dedicated camera, and the picamera Python package allows for a high level of user control with regards to its settings and functionality [9]. Across a range of fields, various biological studies have used the Raspberry Pi as a camera device to monitor behavior, growth, and development of animals, plants, and bacteria [2,[10][11][12][13][14]. For instance, the Raspberry Pi was used to create "POLIR," an open-source, customizable system for high throughput analytical microbiology imaging, and "Picroscope" uses the Raspberry Pi for a microscope for simultaneous longitudinal imaging, with demonstrated applications in 2D and 3D cell/tissue cultures and whole organism imaging of frog and zebrafish development and planaria regeneration [10,14].…”

“…Across a range of fields, various biological studies have used the Raspberry Pi as a camera device to monitor behavior, growth, and development of animals, plants, and bacteria [2,[10][11][12][13][14]. For instance, the Raspberry Pi was used to create "POLIR," an open-source, customizable system for high throughput analytical microbiology imaging, and "Picroscope" uses the Raspberry Pi for a microscope for simultaneous longitudinal imaging, with demonstrated applications in 2D and 3D cell/tissue cultures and whole organism imaging of frog and zebrafish development and planaria regeneration [10,14]. However, researchers are often required to program their Raspberry Pis and create setups specifically for their studies (e.g.…”

Mod3D: A low-cost, flexible modular system of live-cell microscopy chambers and holders

“…Given the resolution and precision of 3D printing, as well as the inherent ability to customize, applications in microscopy are numerous to develop low cost specialized solutions [ 3 , 4 ] to open sourced projects that significantly lower the cost barrier to high performance microscopy, such as the OpenFlexure system [ 5 – 7 ]. 3D printing has been adopted successfully to create microscopy stage chambers for the study of model organisms in three and four dimensions [ 8 ].…”