Time-lapse Imaging Cytometry

Understanding Cellular Dynamics

An advantage of holographic microscopy is that the created quantitative phase images are focused when viewed, not when recorded. This makes the HoloMonitor time-lapse cytometer ideal for long-term imaging and analysis of living cells by means of time-lapse micro­scopy, which acquires a series of cell images at regular time intervals to analyze the dynamics of various cellular events. Un­focused images, caused by focus drift, are simply refocused by letting the computer soft­ware recreate the phase image from the recorded hologram.

In addition to identifying each individual cell, HoloMonitor provides data for analysis of more than 30 morphological parameters. However, the true power of time-lapse cytometry first emerges when the same cells are monitored over time. The HoloMonitor design utilizes recent tech­nological advances to allow time-lapse image sequences of cultured cells to be effortlessly recorded over long time periods.

With HoloMonitor installed in a cell incubator, the cells are kept in a cell friendly environment during the entire experiment. Long-term live cell kinetic data can easily be obtained using time-lapse microscopy. Images are recorded at selected intervals, down to 1 image/sec. Depending on the app­lication, cell images are played back as a video recording to aid analysis of dynamic cell behavior.

Cytometric Imaging Software

From recorded time-lapse image sequences, the Holo­Monitor App Suite software helps the user to auto­matically extract and kinetically analyze live cell population data based on individual cell data. When preferred, individual cell data — such as cell count, cell morphology, cell velocity, and cell division rate — can all be measured from the same experimental time-lapse data, without requiring additional experiments.