Acquisition of a Nipkow Disk

该小组提案请求资金帮助购买Nipkow磁盘组件和辅助设备，这些设备将在孟菲斯大学建立一个多用户共聚焦光显微镜设施。辅助设备将有助于图像采集和分析，并提供图像的硬拷贝供出版。该设备的主要用户将是本科生、研究生和博士后，以及生物系的教师。所要求的设备将是对该部门已经建立的数字研究光学显微镜设施的补充，该设施由大学，私人基金会和工业界提供资金。项目包括不同的研究对象，使用共聚焦图像分析来研究放线菌细胞壁的发育，蜱虫唾液腺中肌动蛋白介导的唾液分泌，以及青蛙卵母细胞的细胞骨架功能。其他项目将使用共聚焦显微镜来研究鞭毛藻和海洋微生物之间的共生关系，以及植物和固氮细菌之间的共生关系。在所有这些研究中，两个主要的限制是失焦光（背景雾）造成的对比度损失，以及缺乏组装研究对象的三维图像的能力。所要求的仪器将几乎消除这些问题，并允许提高共聚焦成像的分辨率，使这些项目能够迅速取得进展。

This group proposal requests funds to aid in purchasing a Nipkow disk assembly and ancillary equipment that will establish a multiuser confocal light microscope facility at the University of Memphis. The ancillary equipment will aid in image acquisition and analysis, and provide hard copies of images for publication. The primary users of the equipment will be undergraduate, graduate and postdoctoral students, and faculty in the Biology Department. The requested equipment will be an addition to a digital research light microscope facility already established in the department with funds from the University, a private foundation and industry. Projects encompass a diverse group of subjects, using confocal image analysis to investigate cell wall development in actinomyetes, actin-mediated saliva secretion in tick salivary glands, and cytoskeleton function in frog oocytes. Other projects will use confocal microscopy to investigate symbioses between dinoflagellates and sea anenomes, and between plants and nitrogen- fixing bacteria. In all of these studies two major limitations are loss of contrast by out of focus light (background haze) and lack of the ability to assemble a three dimensional image of the object of study. The requested instrumentation will virtually eliminate these problems, and allow increased resolution that results from confocal imaging, making it possible to progress rapidly in these projects.