The ePetri dish, an on-chip cell imaging platform based on subpixel perspective sweeping microscopy (SPSM)

Area of Science:

• Biomedical Engineering
• Microscopy
• Cell Biology

Background:

• Traditional microscopy methods often require complex optics and manual operation, limiting throughput and increasing contamination risks in cell culture experiments.
• Existing lensless microscopy techniques, such as optofluidic microscopy and digital in-line holography, have limitations when imaging contiguous or confluent cell cultures.

Purpose of the Study:

• To introduce a novel chip-scale, lensless wide-field-of-view microscopy technique for autonomous imaging of cell cultures.
• To demonstrate the utility of this technique in developing smart Petri dish platforms (ePetri) for enhanced cell culture monitoring.

Main Methods:

• Subpixel perspective sweeping microscopy (SPSM) was employed, leveraging affordable, high-performance image sensor chips for a low-cost solution.
• The technique was adapted for imaging cell cultures, including contiguous and confluent samples, overcoming limitations of other lensless methods.
• A prototype was developed to image samples with a 6 mm × 4 mm field of view at 660-nm resolution.

Main Results:

• Demonstrated autonomous imaging of growing and confluent cell cultures.
• Successfully imaged color-stained cell cultures and tracked cell growth within an incubator.
• Tracked embryonic stem cell differentiation across the entire sensor surface.

Conclusions:

• The developed subpixel perspective sweeping microscopy offers a versatile, low-cost, and automated solution for cell culture imaging.
• Smart Petri dish platforms based on this technology can significantly reduce manual labor and contamination risks in cell culture workflows.
• This advancement has the potential to streamline and improve various cell culture-based research and applications.