Microscopy Quality Control

Modern fluorescence imaging systems are complex instruments made of many optical, mechanical, and electronical components. The possibilities of misalignment, malfunction or failure of imaging instruments can come from different components. Therefore, regularly controlling the quality of such instruments is important.

Aim:

• Ensuring the acquisition of reliable data and preventing corrupted data

• Removing the bias introduced by the instrument

• Knowing how the system performances evolve over time and perform quantitative microscopy

Material: 

Argo SIM QC slide (Manufactured by Argolight France. Purchased in Dec 2021). This slide is composed of different fluorescent patterns in 2D and 3D. Below is an overview of available fluorescent patterns and corresponding quality tests.

Quality Test	Corresponding Pattern	Patten Image	QC Frequency
Lateral resolution	Gradually spaced lines	Open	Monthly
Intensity response	Intensity gradation (4x4 & 2x16)	Open	Monthly
Field uniformity	Field of rings		Monthly
Field distortion	Field of rings		Monthly
Stage drift during Z-stacking	3D crossing stairs		Yearly
Stage drift during timelapse	Repositioning cross		Yearly
Optical sectioning strength	Matrix of crosses		Yearly
Accuracy of 3D reconstruction	Sphere		Yearly
Line spread function	Field of rings		Yearly
Ring spread function	Field of rings		Yearly

Method:

• Step1: Image acquisition

Depending on what quality items to be checked with a certain fluorescence microscope, patterns can be imaged using the Argo SIM QC slide.

• Step 2: Image analysis

Images of different pattens can be processed in the dedicated software Daybook 3.

Report:

Following the link below, we present the report on Quality Control (QC) in three imaging systems.

• Olympus BX53 Fluorescent Microscope

• DeltaVision Elite Deconvolution Microscope