Patent Application
20200325434
Imaging of living cells or small organisms has the potential to provide valuable information on cell proliferation, cell shape changes, cell migratory behaviors, and organismal development. Some living cells and organisms must be maintained at non-ambient temperatures to support these developments. Expensive commercially available temperature control devices are available to enable such non-ambient temperature developments, including microscope stages surrounded by custom-fit Plexiglas boxes, heated plates for culture dishes, and objective warmers for water immersion lenses. These devices strictly control temperature and, in some cases, help control local gas mixtures. Although microscope stage incubators of various designs are commercially available, most are expensive and have other drawbacks.
A need exists in the art for an inexpensive, one-piece, plastic incubator plate that can be manufactured to engage a wide variety of specimen vessels and that maintains a set temperature with minimal fluctuations.
A microscopy imaging system according to the present disclosure includes a microscope, a sample vessel, and an incubator module. The microscope is configured for magnification of a specimen. The sample vessel is constructed from transparent material and is configured to hold the specimen. The incubator module is configured to support the sample vessel and to maintain the sample vessel at an elevated temperature during magnification by the microscope.
In illustrated embodiments, the incubator module is specially configured for microscopy and includes a one-piece, unitary plastic incubator plate. The incubator plate is shaped to provide a sample housing onto which the sample vessel is mounted and a heating element passageway formed in the incubator plate. The heating element passageway is configured to hold heated media used to elevate the temperature of the sample vessel during magnification by the microscope.
Additional features of the present disclosure will become apparent to those skilled in the art upon consideration of illustrative embodiments exemplifying the best mode of carrying out the disclosure as presently perceived.
The detailed description particularly refers to the accompanying figures in which:
A microscopy imaging system 100 with an incubator plate 10 provides means for imaging cells maintained at non-ambient temperatures as suggested in
In the exemplary embodiments, the incubator module 11 includes an incubator plate 10 as shown in
Turning to a first microscopy imaging system 100 shown in
In the embodiment of
In the illustrative embodiment, the incubator plate 10 includes an inlet port 22 and an outlet port 26 interconnected by the heating element passageway 13 as shown in
In the exemplary embodiment, the incubator plate 10 further includes a third port 24 in fluid communication with the heating element passageway 13. The third port 24 is normally closed off but is configured to open in response to a pressure in the heating element passageway 13 exceeding a predetermined threshold. This can be accomplished by providing a thinned section of the incubator plate 10, with a pressure relief valve, or in any other suitable fashion.
Now looking to
A sample vessel is placed into sample vessel housing 12. Incubator plate 10 is then placed on a light, fluorescence, or confocal microscope stage as suggested in
Plastic incubator plate 10 further includes serrated inlet port 22, serrated outlet port 26 and serrated third port 24. By circulating heated water through an inner region of plastic incubator plate 10, one or more sample vessels are maintained at a constant target temperature.
Water or other media may be heated externally in a pump 84 or reservoir 82 that has automated temperature control. The externally heated water travels from the pump 84 through tubing and enters an opening in inlet port 22 in plastic incubator plate 10. A regulator valve 86 may be placed between the pump and inlet port 22 as an added water flow control measure. The heated water enters the incubator plate passageway 13 and circulates through inner region of plastic incubator plate 10 before exiting through an opening in outlet port 26 and then into tubing that conveys the waste water to appropriate disposal or recycle means. Third port 24 allows water to exit incubator plate 10 if water pressure exceeds a certain threshold.
In embodiments of the present disclosure, circulating water can be replaced with thermal metallic dry beads 85′ which are inserted into incubator 10 via the ports and then uniformly spread throughout the interior plate space. A heating wire connected to a power source is inserted through inlet port. In addition, a metallic probe connected to a thermostat is inserted through outlet port to maintain a desired temperature. A secondary thin probe is optionally attached to the bottom center of a sample vessel to measure the actual temperature.
The plastic incubator plates 10 may be manufactured by a variety of methods known to one of ordinary skill in the art such as by conventional manufacturing or three-dimensional printing. One of ordinary skill in the art recognizes that the specific manufacturing steps including, but not limited to, selective deposition, jetting, fused deposition modeling, multijet modeling and other techniques may be combined in different ways to prepare the inventive plastic incubator plates.
For imaging of living cells or small organisms by microscopy over extended periods of time, the temperature may need to be optimal for the cells or organisms imaged. This can be obtained through the use of an incubator that is mounted on the microscope, or by a heated stage. Both these options are expensive. Designs in accordance with the present disclosure include an incubator plate 10, sometimes called tissue culture well plate, with temperature control through 3D printing. Some embodiments integrate circulating water to control the temperature. Other embodiments incorporate electrical heating.
The present disclosure provides a incubator plate 10, sometimes referred to as a THERMOCONTROL plate, that holds microscope dishes and controls the temperature of them, and thus it replaces the need for an expensive microscope incubator. Exemplary incubator plates 10 that form part of the disclosed system may be manufactured by 3D printing and may have two wells that can fit two commercially available 35 mm micro-well glass bottom dishes, commonly used for confocal microscopy. The dimensions of the exemplary incubator plate 10 is 127 mm×84 mm×18 mm. The plate also has an inlet 22 and two outlets 24, 26. The material used for 3D-printing of prototype plates 10 was Visijet X, a plastic material with a melting temperature above 70° C. All the designs were constructed using the TinkerCad software, regularly used for 3D-printing, and were also double checked for any leakages in the design using the Cura software.
In a first design, temperature can be controlled by circulating water. The circulating water can maintain a uniform heat distribution across the entire plate 10. However, the one consideration of the system 100 with water was the risk of water leakage, in particular when mounted on the confocal microscope stage top. In a second design, water was replaced with thermal metallic dry beads 85′, specifically LAB ARMOR beads, which are manufactured and patented by Sheldon Manufacturing in August 2017, Oregon, USA. These are designed to replace water and they transfer the heat to the contained material. Of course other thermally conductive materials may also be used including various types of polymers.
These thermal metallic beads 85′ may be inserted into the plate via the inlet and the outlet and uniformly spread inside the plate 10. A heating wire 88′ may also be inserted through the inlet 22 and connected to a power supply 82′. A temperature sensor 50 provided by a metallic probe can be inserted in the outlet 26 and connected to a thermostat (controller 40), to maintain a desired temperature of 28° C.-29° C., an optimum temperature required for growth of the zebrafish embryos, or 37° C. for cells. Cooling applications may use thermal electric devices TEDs in place of the heating wire 88 and/or beads 85′ to heat or cool depending on the direction of current applied.
A secondary thin probe was attached to the bottom at the center of the glass plate to record the actual temperature. An offset of +/−1.6° C. was set in the thermostat to obtain the required temperature.
Cost of the incubator plate 10 is very low. It can be reused multiple times for various experiments by switching out the disposable 35 mm dishes that it holds. Secondly, it is a simple, small portable equipment that can be carried easily and moved around from one place to the other with the minimum hassle. Thirdly, there is no inspection and maintenance cost of the product. It is a small, simple plate that fits on the microscope stage. It requires no additional monitoring of the setup. It is user-friendly and is easy to handle. It can be used for imaging of both cells and small organisms.
The outer dimensions of the incubator plate 10 (width and length in particular) are sized to fit most microscope stages. Accordingly, the plate is not only placed on top of the stage, but actually is attached so as to be fixed in place.
Various modifications and additions can be made to the embodiments disclosed herein without departing from the scope of the disclosure. For example, while the embodiments described above refer to particular features, the scope of this disclosure also includes embodiments having different combinations of features and embodiments that do not include all of the described features. Thus, the scope of the present disclosure is intended to embrace all such alternatives, modifications, and variations as fall within the scope of the claims, together with all equivalents.
This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. § 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 62/831,281, filed 9 Apr. 2019, which is expressly incorporated by reference herein.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62831281 | Apr 2019 | US |
