Microscope to Provide
Real-Life Look at Cells

By Andrew Vowles

U of G scientists hope to get a more intimate real-life look at the inner workings of cells and tissues after a new state-of-the-art microscope worth almost $400,000 arrives at Guelph next month.

The new instrument will give investigators across three colleges a more powerful tool for learning about cellular parts and processes. Initially to be installed in the Department of Botany, the new $392,000 device will eventually become part of a suite of microscopy and imaging tools planned for the University's new science complex.

"The instrument allows researchers to examine cells and dynamic processes," says Prof. Robert Mullen, Botany. Unlike electron microscopes, which permit users to study only dead tissue, this confocal laser scanning microscope uses laser light to produce two- and three-dimensional images of live tissue.

Mullen led a team of Guelph researchers in a funding application in late 2000 to the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council (NSERC). The council will provide $250,000 through a major equipment grant. The balance will be paid for through the budgets of four College of Biological Science departments - Botany, Zoology, Microbiology and Molecular Biology and Genetics - as well as funding from the CBS dean's office, OVC's Department of Biomedical Sciences and the Food System Biotechnology Centre.

Some 30 Guelph faculty from those and other departments are expected to use the device regularly in a variety of research projects. It will replace an older microscope to be retained for teaching purposes.

Scheduled to arrive in March, the microscope will be ready for use by early April, says Mullen. It will be installed in an imaging and microscopy centre in the botany wing of the Axelrod Building. Eventually, the equipment will be housed in specially designed quarters within the planned science building, along with scanning transmission electron microscopes and related equipment currently in the NSERC/Guelph Regional STEM facility in the Department of Microbiology.

Yukari Uetake, who recently completed post-doctoral work in botany at U of G, will return this spring from Japan as a research technician to run the equipment.

Writing the NSERC funding application was one of the first priorities for Mullen when he arrived at the University in 2000. "This is probably my primary instrument," he says.

As a plant biologist, he plans to use the microscope to observe how proteins move around and work inside plant cells. He says his basic research might eventually help applied scientists in, say, biotechnology companies manipulate genes and proteins to make seedlings germinate and grow more rapidly or efficiently.

Studying proteins used in certain cellular structures might also help medical researchers learn more about how defects in those structures can cause human diseases such as Zellweger's syndrome, a metabolic disorder.

"How an organelle is formed in a plant is not that different from how an organelle is formed in an animal," Mullen says.

Prof. Terry Beveridge, Microbiology, plans to use the new instrument to learn more about bacterial attachment and growth on various surfaces.

"This microscope will allow us to take 'optical slices' through the biofilm without disturbing its viability, so as to understand the microenvironments that surround each bacterial cell and are so important for growth," he says.

Although an electron microscope provides higher resolution to distinguish between cellular components, the beam of electrons kills whatever the user is examining. This confocal instrument will allow scientists to study dynamic processes in living tissues and cells. And it will allow users to zero in on various layers and organelles within a cell in a more precise way than a conventional light microscope could.

Imagine looking through an unopened deck of cards for one particular card, says Mullen. "A laser microscope filters out all the other light from the deck except the one card you're interested in."