Electronic light microscopy combined with spectrophotometry allows real-time analysis of structures at the...

A combination of microscopy (video-enhanced contrast microscopy) and spectrophotometry (which analyses online the spectra from the microscopic picture) is presented. This set-up allows the in vivo microscopic observation of cellular and subcellular structures as well as simultaneous online determination of cellular chromophores. To test our equipment we measured spectra of isolated red blood cells and NG 108-15 cells and correlated these spectra with the corresponding video-enhanced microscopic picture. By labelling specific cell organelles of astrocytes with in vivo fluorescent dyes, we visualized mitochondria and captured the corresponding spectra.