Seeing big and small

Our research depends on our ability to visualise embryonic structures using 3D (confocal) microscopy. We’re pretty good at that by now.

One challenge we face is the need to image tiny cell structures and knowing their position in much larger embryonic tissues. The image below shows the closing spinal region of the mouse spinal neural tube. The entire structure shown is nearly half a millimetre. That’s big enough to see without a microscope, just. Nonetheless, we can image the whole structure with sufficient detail to see individual cells, with cell nuclei shown in cyan.

Finding that balance between visualising a big chunk of tissue yet still having enough detail to seen minuscule structures requires a really good microscope!