What makes the CQ1 the primary choice for 3D imaging and analysis?

Even though it is all just “looking at cells” (as per our theme), there are some fundamental differences when you move from standard (or 2D) high content imaging to 3D on spheroids and organoids. Three crucial points are worth considering here, concerning image quality, imaging speed, and data analysis. And they were when the CQ1 was first designed.

While the traditional HC-work deals with a quite transparent cellular monolayer with a maximum thickness of a few dozen micrometers, in 3D the objects of observation can be quite chunky and have diameters of up to 1 mm. It does not take much imagination that imaging these can be challenging from the illumination and transparency side.

Furthermore, as the imaging of thick objects is done by serial images of a large number of z-layers, it is obvious that image acquisition speed can become an issue. Specifically, when time-lapse experiments on these objects are done, any given time point for the whole object should not stretch out for too long in order to avoid blurring of the composed overall image.

Finally, these multi-z-stacked campaigns generate a lot of images which need to be sensibly processed to give the desired information on the location of individual signals in the cell conglomerate. Ideally these analyses are automated and do not require too much manual work, let alone scripting protocols.