Liverpool 3View: a national hub for 3D-EM bioscience research

需要新的3view设备来对细胞和组织内部的精细细节进行3D成像。在我们的所有项目中，我们都使用多学科方法来解决我们的问题，然而，由于对高分辨率成像的需求，这些方法都被结合在一起。这样做的挑战是，你越仔细地观察，就越难看到周围的背景。解决方案是通过样本拍摄许多连续切片的图像，然后以数字方式将它们重建成可以从任何角度观看的3D体积。这有助于理解组织内细胞之间、亚细胞间隔之间的空间关系，并有助于观察罕见事件。3View系统使这种类型的分析成为例行公事，允许快速处理样品。我们的项目涵盖了从基础细胞生物学和生理学到细胞在移动时如何组织它们的通信系统、细胞的循环机制如何工作、细胞和组织在衰老过程中的变化以及健康组织的生物发生和结构组织等广泛的学科。我们的工作还延伸到翻译项目，例如工程干细胞和宿主组织之间的相互作用，开发用于治疗与年龄相关的眼睛疾病的新型细胞支架，寄生虫或细菌在肠道中的感染途径，以及开发用于将货物运送到细胞的新型纳米颗粒工具。这些设备将被安置在英国领先的电子显微镜单元中，并向来自英国和欧洲的外部科学家开放。3View是一项刚刚开始在英国建立起来的新技术。作为使利物浦成为这项技术的全国中心并帮助推动创新应用的一部分，我们将设立一个研讨会计划，作为经验丰富的用户的论坛，并使新用户能够了解样品处理、成像和分析。

New 3View equipment is required for imaging the fine details of the insides of cells and tissues in 3D. In all of our projects we are using multidisciplinary approaches to address our questions however they are all united by the need for imaging at high resolution. The challenge with this is that the closer you look the harder it is to see the surrounding context. The solution is to take images of many serial sections through the sample and then digitally reconstruct them into a 3D volume that can be viewed from any angle. This helps with understanding the spatial relationships between cells within tissues, between subcellular compartments and for observing rare events. The 3View system makes this type of analysis routine, allowing rapid processing of samples. Our projects span a broad range of subjects from basic cell biology and physiology such how cells organise their communication systems when they are moving, how the recycling machinery of the cell works, changes to cells and tissues during ageing and the biogenesis and structural organisation of healthy tissues. Our work also extend through to translational projects, for example interactions between engineered stem cells and host tissue, development of novel cell scaffolds for treating age-related eye disorders, infection routes taken by parasites or bacteria in the gut and the development of novel nanoparticle tools for delivering cargoes to cells. The equipment will be housed in a leading UK electron microscopy unit and available to external scientists from the UK and Europe. 3View is a new technology that is only beginning to become established within the UK. As part of making Liverpool a national hub for this technology and to help drive innovative applications, we will set up a workshop programme that will act as a forum for experienced users and will enable new users to learn about sample processing, imaging and analysis.