Bio-Rad Radiance 2100

Location: MRC Building, Room 1.20B

A Bio-Rad Radiance confocal microscope mounted on a Nikon E800 manual upright microscope stand. You can use this microscope for imaging slides and for specimens that can only be imaged in open chambers in aqueous media (e.g. tissue, pupae/embryos, fish) or that require a longer working distance. The optional water dipping lenses have working distances in the order of 2 mm. Live mammalian cells can be imaged if the imaging chamber can be inverted so the cells are upside down. There is an optional heated stage adapter for warming the specimen but there is no CO2 supply so the chamber must be sealed to prevent pH change. There are three lasers with six laser lines but there is no 405 nm laser, so you cannot image DAPI or Hoechst. The confocal has three GaAsP detectors for high sensitivity imaging of poorly fluorescent specimens or at low laser power. FRAP and other photo-stimulation experiments are possible

Access & Usage

• Training
• Confocal Booking System
• Microscope Booking Rules

Technical Specifications

Lasers

Argon laser with lines at 458, 476, 488 and 514 nm. Suitable for green fluorescent dyes like EGFP, FITC, Alexa 488 and others. 514 nm line can be used for YFP and related proteins. 458 line can be used for CFP but this is not a very powerful line.

Green HeNe laser (543 nm) for use with orange/red dyes like TRITC, Alexa 532, Alexa 546, Alexa 555, Cy3, DsRed. Can also be used for 'redder' dyes like Texas Red, Alexa 568, Alexa 594, mCherry but with lower excitation efficiency

Red Diode (637 nm) for use with far red dyes like Cy5, Alexa 633, Alexa 647, silicon rhodamine dyes, DRAQ5

Note that there is no 405 nm laser on this machine so you cannot image Hoechst, DAPI or anything else in the blue region of the visible spectrum

Links:

• Confocal Booking System
• Confocal Resolution Calculator
• Start-up Procedure
• Shut-down Procedure
• Image Acquisition