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Neural Stem Cells/Neural Progenitors (NSCs/NPs) are cells that give rise to the main cell types of the nervous system; oligodendrocytes, neurons and astrocytes. Studying NSCs/NPs with time-lapse microscopy critical to the understanding of the biology of these cells. NSCs/NPs are very sensitive to phototoxic damage and therefore fluorescent dyes cannot be used to follow these cells. The second issue a high number of cells needs to be followed and therefore parallel image acquisition is required. Automated visual tracking of suspension living cells using phase-contrast time-lapse microscopy is a solution to this problem. Unlike adherent cells, suspension cells float freely in a liquid solution thus making their dynamics very different from that of adherent cells. As a result, existing visual tracking algorithms which have primarily been developed to track adherent cells are no longer adequate to tackle living cells in suspension.

Thus we present a novel automated 3-d visual tracking of suspension living cells for time-lapse image acquisition using phase-contrast microscopy. This new tracking method can potentially strongly impact on current 3-d video microscopy methods, paving the way for innovative analysis of NSCs/NPs and as a result, on the study of neurodegenerative diseases.

This approach is the first method to accomplish long-term automated visual tracking of living cells in suspension in 3-d, without involving fluorescent dyes.

The further details, some examples, and references can be found here.