Sartorius Incucyte SX5 live-cell analysis system

Sartorius has launched the Incucyte SX5 live-cell analysis system, offering capabilities including novel optics, paired reagents and purpose-built software to enable researchers to draw insight from every live cell experiment. The product contains optics that are designed specifically for long-term live-cell experiments and with flexibility in mind. Whether researchers are studying oncology, immuno-oncology, immunology or neuroscience cell models, users will be able to transition seamlessly from one question to the next.

With its optical design, the product offers up to five different fluorescence channels, up to three at a time, extending the applications and cell models that can be explored. The system’s fluorescence configuration, plus HD phase optics, means data should be generated from every imaging session, enabling insights from complex cell models. Researchers can spend weeks preparing a cell culture or other advanced cell model for a single experiment, where different attributes like cell health, proliferation, metabolism, morphology and movement are each visualised with a different channel.

Three colour channels allow users to not only save time but ask more of their cell models, the company claims. For instance, co-cultures are easily explored, with two channels used to identify attributes of two cell types, plus a third channel to detect health or function. Because the device can address up to six independent microplate experiments in parallel, it streamlines live-cell imaging and analysis in lab settings where multiple individuals are using the instrument concurrently.

Sensitive cell types can be imaged and analysed in the system for days or months without ever being removed from the incubator. The instrument keeps cells stationary and in a physiologically relevant for the duration of an experiment. All the while, integrated, user-friendly software analyses the results in real time.