PCIC Publication Guide

Please remember to acknowledge PCIC at Boyce Thompson Institute in any publications you have that include images taken in the facility

The microscopes were purchased with an award from the National Science Foundation (Major Research Instrumentation Panel), and we are required to submit an annual progress report detailing the activities in the Plant Cell Imaging Center. To help us, we request that you acknowledge the Plant Cell Imaging Center, and the funding sources, in your publications. This provides documented evidence of use of the facility and will be important for future applications for additional instruments or upgrades to the facility.

The microscopes were purchased with an award from the National Science Foundation (NSF DBI-0618969).

Technical Information for Manuscript Preparation

• Microscope: Leica DM6000B
• Confocal: Leica TCS-SP5 (Leica Microsystems Exton, PA USA)
• Software Version: LAS-AF v 2.6.0 (confocal machine), v 2.6.0 (workstation 2)
• More technical information is available on the individual web pages for each microscope.

In the methods section, you must list the lasers and corresponding excitation lines used in your experiment. You must also specify which emission wavelengths were collected for each dye. The zoom factor should be mentioned if the confocal zoom was used. If Z stacks of images were collected (optical sections) the step size should be mentioned (e.g., 0.8 um optical section thickness).

Please note that the same parameters must be used if you are comparing the intensities of two samples. This applies not only to gain and offset, but also to zoom and scan speed.

Here is an example of a typical description:

Images were collected on a Leica TCS-SP5 confocal microscope (Leica Microsystems, Exton, PA USA) using a 63x water immersion objective NA 1.2, zoom 1.6. GFP was excited with the blue argon ion laser (488 nm), and emitted light was collected between Xnm and Xnm. mCherry was excited with an orange HeNe laser (594 nm), and emitted light was collected from Xnm to Xnm. Chloroplasts were excited with the blue argon laser (488 nm), and emitted light was collected from Xnm to Xnm. (If the two channels were collected separately, indicate that GFP + chloroplasts signals were collected separately from the mCherry signal and later superimposed.) DIC (differential interference contrast) images were collected simultaneously with the fluorescence images using the transmitted light detector. Images were processed using Leica LAS-AF software (version 2.6.0) and Adobe Photoshop CS2 version 9.0.2 (Adobe systems).