title: In situ sensitive fluorescence imaging of neurons cultured on a plasmonic dish using fluorescence microscopy.
abstract: A plasmonic dish was fabricated as a novel cell-culture dish for in situ sensitive imaging applications, in which the cover glass of a glass-bottomed dish was replaced by a grating substrate coated with a film of silver. Neuronal cells were successfully cultured over a period of more than 2 weeks in the plasmonic dish. The fluorescence images of their cells including dendrites were simply observed in situ using a conventional fluorescence microscope. The fluorescence from neuronal cells growing along the dish surface was enhanced using the surface plasmon resonance field. Under an epi-fluorescence microscope and employing a donut-type pinhole, the fluorescence intensity of the neuron dendrites was found to be enhanced efficiently by an order of magnitude compared with that using a conventional glass-bottomed dish. In a transmitted-light fluorescence microscope, the surface-selective fluorescence image of a fine dendrite growing along the dish surface was observed; therefore, the spatial resolution was improved compared with the epi-fluorescence image of the identical dendrite.
authors.affiliation: Health Research Institute, AIST , 1-8-31 Midorigaoka, Ikeda, Osaka, Osaka 563-8577, Japan.
authors.forename: Keiko
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Tawa
authors.forename: Chikara
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Yasui
authors.forename: Chie
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Hosokawa
authors.forename: Hiroyuki
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Aota
authors.forename: Junji
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Nishii
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D000906:Antibodies / Q000276:immunology; D002478:Cells, Cultured; D017404:In Situ Hybridization, Fluorescence; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence; D008869:Microtubule-Associated Proteins / Q000276:immunology / Q000378:metabolism; D009474:Neurons / Q000166:cytology* / Q000378:metabolism; D051381:Rats; D017208:Rats, Wistar
chemical_list: D000906:Antibodies; D008869:Microtubule-Associated Proteins; C079240:Mtap2 protein, mouse
keywords: culture; fluorescence imaging; grating; microscopy; neuronal cell; plasmon