CONFOCAL MICROSCOPE

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This proposal requests funding for a state-of-the art confocal laser scanning microscope, the Zeiss LSM 510. This instrument will serve a growing community of researchers at the University of North Texas Health Science Center at Fort Worth as well as a number of other researchers from local institutions. There is currently no confocal microscope in UNTHSC or Fort Worth. Users have to travel to the University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center in Dallas to obtain data. The graduate students cannot obtain any confocal data at all. The requested instrument will be housed in the Microscopy Core of the Health Science Center within the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology. The Zeiss LSM 510 is a state-of-the-art instrument which will enable the University of North Texas Health Science Center to meet the current and future needs of its researchers, as well as modernize its teaching technology. It is hoped to take advantage of the reduction of out-of-focus fluorescence from structures above or below the plane of focus to obtain images that are vastly sharper than those obtainable with wide-field microscopes. Current research needs for a confocal include: (i) measuring orientation of cross-bridges in intact muscle by measuring polarization of fluorescence from thin sections of a whole muscle fiber; (ii) optical sectioning of the kidney and primary macrophages and of (iii) pancreatic beta cells to obtain distribution of human growth hormone and CaM Kinase II; (iv) the ability to study ATP-linked effectors of Na,K-ATPase (v) the ability to study the synthesis and release of endothelins in ocular tissue and (vi) the ability to do rapid measurements on thin optical sections to explore real-time changes in orientation of human fibroblasts. There are six major user groups from the Departments of Molecular Biology and Immunology, Anatomy and Cell Biology and Pharmacology. The PI and 4 out of 5 co-PI's hold NIH peer reviewed research grants.