Olympus Corporation

Kosuke Takagi

Yuichiro Matsuo

Yoshihiro Shimada

Tamiyo Kobayashi

Genta Amakawa

Tatsuo Nakata

Hisao Kitagawa

Mitsuhiro Nakano

Mayu Ogawa

Kazuhito Goda

Tsuyoshi Kawai

The present invention provides a method for evaluating a protrusion-forming ability of cell spheroids, comprising step (a) of imaging a cell spheroid labeled with a fluorescent substance using a fluorescence microscope at a resolution capable of identifying individual cells, and acquiring a plane tomographic image of a fluorescence emitted from the fluorescent substance, step (b) of analyzing the plane tomographic image acquired in step (a) to determine a protrusion part of the cell spheroid, and step (c) of evaluating a protrusion-forming ability of the cell spheroid based on the protrusion part determined in step (b).

Method for evaluating protrusion-forming ability of cell spheroids

Provided is a microscope system including a motor-driven stage on which is mounted a culture vessel containing one or more cell clusters, each including cells having a target molecule labeled with a fluorescent or luminescent chemical; a low-magnification-image acquiring unit that acquires low-magnification images of the cell clusters in the culture vessel mounted on the stage; a detecting unit that detects the position of each cell cluster in the culture vessel by analyzing the acquired low-magnification images; and a high-magnification-image acquiring unit that, after the detected position is aligned with the optical axis of an objective lens, acquires slice images of fluorescence or luminescence emitted from the cells forming the cell cluster at a higher magnification than the low-magnification-image acquiring unit at intervals along the optical axis while the stage and/or the lens is moved to change stepwise the distance between the lens and the cell cluster.

Microscope system and microscopy method

A plurality of specimens or a plurality of targets in a specimen are accurately examined. A microscope apparatus includes a light source; an image-generating unit generating an image of a specimen; a control unit controlling the light source and the image-generating unit depending on a predetermined irradiation condition or a predetermined image generation condition; an image-analyzing unit analyzing the image generated by the image-generating unit to extract targets; and a condition-changing unit changing the irradiation condition and/or the image generation condition based on a difference between an actual luminance of each of the extracted targets in the image and a desired luminance such that the actual luminance of the target in the image satisfies the desired luminance. If the irradiation condition and/or the image generation condition is changed, the control unit redrives the light source and the image-generating unit depending on the changed irradiation condition and/or image generation condition.

Microscope apparatus

A cell evaluation method includes: a labeling step of labeling at least some of cells constituting a cell clump with a chemical substance; an image-capturing step of acquiring a plurality of slice images of the labeled cells, for at least part of the cell clump; an evaluating step of evaluating the characteristics of the cells on the basis of the plurality of slice images; a 3D-image creating step of creating a 3D image of at least part of the cell clump by subjecting the plurality of slice images to image processing; a center-of-gravity determining step of determining, from the 3D image, a center-of-gravity position of the cell clump; and an organizing step of organizing evaluation results obtained in the evaluating step, with respect to the distance from the center-of-gravity position.

Cell evaluation method

A cell image analysis apparatus includes a threshold value storage unit storing a cell nucleus threshold value, a fragmented cell nucleus threshold value, and a cell nucleus area threshold value in advance, an image input unit inputting a cell image captured from a cell stained with a fluorescent substance, a cell nucleus region extraction unit extracting, from the input cell image, a region having an area equal to or larger than the cell nucleus area threshold value from among regions having a luminance value equal to or larger than the cell nucleus threshold value as a cell nucleus region, and a fragmented cell nucleus region extraction unit extracting, from the cell nucleus region, a region having a luminance value equal to or larger than the fragmented cell nucleus threshold value as a fragmented cell nucleus region.

Cell image analysis apparatus, cell image analysis method, and program

A cell-image analyzing apparatus includes: a cell imaging system having an imaging optical system and an image sensor, for imaging cells that exist in a vessel; a cell-image analyzer for automatically analyzing a predetermined characteristic quantity on the cells using a cell image captured via the cell imaging system, upon delimiting cell regions; and a cell-contour emphasizing system for automatically emphasizing contour portions of images of the cells that exist in the vessel, which is arranged at a shot position of the cell imaging system.

Cell-image analyzing apparatus

A cell-image analyzing apparatus is intended to analyze, using a cell image, a cell collective that forms a colony, and is provided with a computer. The cell-image analyzing apparatus has an image analysis software that makes the computer function as: a boundary element extracting means for extracting boundary elements of subjects upon analyzing the cell image; a possible colony region determining means for determining, as a possible colony region, a region surrounded by boundary elements of subjects and having a size greater than a first criterion value; and a colony region determining means for determining, in the possible colony region, a region containing more than a predetermined number of clustered regions each being surrounded by boundary elements of subjects and having a size smaller than a second criterion value, as a colony region.

Simple, high-precision cell tracking is realized. Provided is a method for tracking cells, comprising an image acquisition step (S) of acquiring a plurality of observation images including a plurality of cells in the field of view at certain time intervals; a feature analysis step (S) of analyzing predetermined brightnesses of the individual cells in the observation images acquired in the image acquisition step (S); a grouping step (S) of grouping the cells for each of the observation images on the basis of the brightnesses analyzed in the feature analysis step (S) and a predetermined threshold value for classifying the brightnesses; and an associating step (S) of associating, for each of the groups divided in the grouping step (S), the cells whose morphological features are substantially the same between the observation images acquired at different times.

Method for tracking cells

A laser scanning microscope includes a stage that moves a sample placed thereon, a laser light source that emits laser light, a line-focus optical system that focuses the laser light into a line shape, a DMD including a plurality of movable micromirrors that are arrayed in the lengthwise direction of the line shape and that reflect the line-focused laser light, an irradiation optical system that irradiates the sample with the laser light reflected by the DMD, and a photodetector in which a plurality of channels for detecting light from the sample are arrayed in one column, wherein the DMD is driven so that a plurality of micromirrors simultaneously reflect the laser light and so that micromirrors that reflect the laser light are sequentially switched, wherein the stage moves the sample in a direction crossing the array direction of a plurality of light spots formed on the sample.

Laser scanning microscope having a microelement array

A motor-operated microscope system has a motor-operated microscope section including an illumination optical system, an electric stage, an image forming optical system having an objective lens and an image forming lens, and an image pickup device; a housing; a control device having a screen display and an arithmetic processing section; and software displaying an operating condition setting screen of the motor-operated microscope section on the screen display and controlling an operation of the motor-operated microscope section in accordance with a set condition. The operating condition setting screen has, on one screen, a setting section for an exposure condition with the image pickup means; a setting section for a focusing condition with the objective lenses; an objective interchange setting section; a setting section for wavelength and luminance of illumination light; a setting section for an image pickup range; a display section for a picked-up image; and an operation commanding section for the motor-operated microscope section.

Motor-operated microscope system and software for controlling motor-operated microscopes

In acquisition of an image of cells, a focal position is accurately set at highly active cells rather than focusing on dead cells. Provided is an automatic focusing apparatus () used in a microscope () that image captures fluorescence emitted from cells to acquire a cell image, the automatic focusing apparatus () including a setting unit () that sets a luminance range indicating a region where viable cells exist on the basis of a luminance distribution of the acquired cell image; and a focus-detecting unit that detects a focal position on the basis of a luminance of an image of nuclei of the cells within the luminance range set by the setting unit ().

Automatic focusing apparatus for use in a microscope in which fluorescence emitted from a cell is captured so as to acquire a cell image, and automatic focusing method therefor

A sharp image showing a thin projecting part is acquired without using a complex dyeing method, and the analysis accuracy is improved. An automatic cell analyzer () comprises: an imaging unit () for capturing fluorescence emitted from a cell (S) and acquiring a cell image; an exposure changing section () for changing the exposure condition when the imaging unit () captures cell images; and a processing section () for analyzing the cell (S) on the basis of a plurality of cell images respectively captured under the changed exposure conditions.

Automatic cell analyzer and automatic cell analyzing method

Cells showing specific characters can be separated from noise, extracted, and analyzed, through processing of a cell image. It is intended to provide a cell image processor () comprising: a characteristic quantity measuring section () which processes a cell image obtained by photographing cells to measure characteristic quantities of respective cells in the cell image; a characteristic quantity distribution forming section () which forms the distribution of the thus measured characteristic quantities; a group forming section () which divides cells having continuously distributed characteristic quantities into groups in the thus formed characteristic quantity distribution; and a specific cell extracting section () which extracts cells having characteristic quantities falling within a predetermined range at both ends of a characteristic quantity distribution in each group, as specific cells.

Cell image processor and cell image processing method

A cell image analysis apparatus and method for judging, quickly and with good reproducibility, the presence or absence of a membrane translocation reaction occurring in a cell owing to application of an arbitrary stimulus to the cell using a fluorescence microscope. The inventive apparatus has: an element acquiring as an image data a fluorescence microscopic image of a cell after the application of the stimulus; an element determining a region occupied by the cell in the fluorescence image of the cell; an element determining a contour line of the cell having a width of a predetermined number of pixels from a periphery of the region occupied by the cell; and an element judging the presence or absence of the membrane translocation reaction based on a brightness value on the contour line of the cell and a brightness value in an inside of the contour line of the cell.

Growing community of inventors

Tokyo, Japan

Kosuke Takagi