High-content Screening - Instrumentation

Instrumentation

High-content screening technology is mainly based on automated digital microscopy and flow cytometry, in combination with IT-systems for the analysis and storage of the data. “High-content” or visual biology technology has two purposes, first to acquire spatially or temporally resolved information on an event and second to automatically quantify it. Spatially resolved instruments are typically automated microscopes, and temporal resolution still requires some form of fluorescence measurement in most cases.This means that a lot of HCS instruments are (fluorescence) microscopes that are connected to some form of image analysis package. These take care of all the steps in taking fluorescent images of cells and provide rapid, automated and unbiased assessment of experiments.

The instruments on the market can be divided on the basis of price, footprint and the ethereal design qualities of the box they come in - but the most incisive difference is whether the instruments are optical confocal or not. Confocal imaging summarizes as imaging/resolving a thin slice through an object and rejecting out of focus light that comes from outside this slide. This gives higher image signal to noise and higher resolution than the more commonly applied epi-fluorescence microscopy. For many biological assays, confocal imaging is not ideal (e.g. phototoxicity issues or the need for a larger focal depth etc.). What all instruments share is the ability to take, store and interpret images automatically and most integrate into large robotic cell/medium handling platforms.