CytoSMART Lux2
Cell Culture Video
Monitoring
CytoSMART Lux2
Life sciences researchers are gathering more and more information on cellular mechanisms and cell and tissue culture techniques. Understanding cell culture behavior and evaluating cellular health requires extensive training and experience. Processes like cell subculturing, growth rates and nutrition depletion require an experts intuition and trial-and-error based optimization. To communicate these findings is not straightforward. Personal teaching is ideal, but in many cases not manageable. As such video monitoring of cell cultures can be highly beneficial to showcase the progression of cell cultures in an intuitive manner.
The CytoSMART Lux2 provides an easy and cost-effective solution for time-lapse imaging. Monitor cell proliferation, motility and morphology for hours up to weeks at a time. The CytoSMART Lux2 is a compact inverted lab microscope for bright-field live cell imaging. It works from inside any standard CO2-incubator and can be used in routine cell culture processes.
Easy to use. Great instrument.
"I have used this instrument for live cell imaging. The results are reproducible. The instrument is easy to use and you can remotely access your data."
Very good instrument for long term imaging.
"Very easy product to use, basically plug it in and it works. Love that it can be used inside an incubator as I had trouble with long term imaging with on stage incubators for big microscopes. Also, don't need to worry about fluctuations in temperature and oxygen percentages and deal with oxygen tanks. I would like there to be different magnifications and possibly brightfield, but it isn't essential."
Great in all senses.
"Easy to handle, reliable and produces good images. Its a good bargain."
Great to use, makes life easier in cell culture.
"The equipment is very straightforward to use and has a clean layout. So far, we have had no issues regarding its use."
Good for time lapses.
"I used the CytoSMART Lux2 to observe fungi. The contrast was great, I was able to track hyphae over a couple days before it became a tangled mess. Cloud storage was very handy. I liked the minimalist design, made it very simple to operate. Would use again!"
Observe your cells from your PC, tablet and smartphone!
""CytoSMART Lux2 is a truly useful product in the laboratory. It allows you to obtain real-time images of your experiments and can also be used for time-lapse monitoring of cell cultures. It is very easy to use thanks to the integrated tablet and can be considered a low cost solution to start cell migration studies."
The cells can be easily tracked by this machine.
"We use this device to monitor cell proliferation and cell migration. It gives nice and easy data in the incubator. The cells can be monitored even with a smartphone."
Live insight in cell health and growth rates
Automated live cell microscopy with a remote connection
Culturing cells can be a black-box experiment. In between inspection rounds assumptions are made of cell growth rates and cell viability based on the researchers experience. Using the CytoSMART Lux2, these assumptions are redundant as time-lapse movies are automatically generated and can be assessed immediately. Obtain real-time updates of the health of your cells, even during image acquisition.
Online connection to inspect your cell cultures
Remote access helps to decide when it's time to go to the lab
CytoSMART’s compact cell video monitoring system can film living cells without disturbing their growth. The device is accessible from an online environment, thus enabling researchers to look at their cell cultures and assess what the next steps are, without having to step into the laboratory.
Perfect timing of subculturing
Use the CytoSMART Lux2 confluence notification service
Using cell monitoring software, users can set alerts for target confluence levels. You will receive a notification email once your cell culture has reached the set confluence and is ready for subculture or experiments, such as transfection. The notification system uses CytoSMART’s cloud-based image analysis algorithms. Recorded images are analyzed in real-time to determine the confluence level (% occupied area), providing insight in proliferation rates.
Very useful and convenient to check your cells, especially for the weekends.
Alejandro Rodriguez Ruiz | PhD-candidate
Leiden University Medical Center
Want to know what is happening to your cells?
Morphology, Migration, Cytotoxicity, Proliferation and more.
This live cell microscope creates images and movies that contain many cellular features, which can be extracted using image analysis tools.
Monitor cellular behavior over time and investigate how cells respond and interact with their environment. See our overview of applications and assays that can be performed using the CytoSMART Lux2.
Monitor cells in their optimized environment
Easily fits in your incubator
Dependent on growth speed and experimental conditions, cell cultures progress over periods of hours, days or even weeks. To maintain cell health, or to perform biological assays, cells should be kept at the required environmental conditions throughout the entire experiment. The CytoSMART Lux2 is compact, its size is comparable to a large culture flask, so it comfortably fits inside any standard CO2- or hypoxia incubator, ensuring your cells will remain at the desired environmental conditions.
Use the appropriate culture vessel for your cells or experiment
Monitor cells inside flasks, microfluidic chips and more
The open design of the CytoSMART Lux2 allows users to image any transparent culture vessel, including culture flasks, well plates, petri dishes and microfluidic chips. It’s rapid recording interval makes the CytoSMART Lux2 extremely suitable for live-cell imaging of cells cultured inside lab-on-a-chip platforms or micro Total Analysis Systems (µTAS). The CytoSMART Lux2 can be used to investigate organ-on-a-chip systems, the effect of fluid flow on cells or single cell migration inside a chip.
Packages
The CytoSMART Lux2 can be configured in multiple packages.
Lux2 - Duo Kit package
Perform comparison studies with live cell imaging
The CytoSMART Lux2 – Duo Kit is a compact automated system, specifically designed to operate from within CO2- incubators and hypoxia chambers. Two devices operate via a single laptop, saving precious lab space.
Technical specifications
| Optics | Bright-field only with digital phase contrast |
|---|---|
| Magnification | 10x fixed objective |
| Fluorescence Filters | N/A |
| Camera | 5MP CMOS |
| Image Formats | JPG, XLSX and MP4 |
| Image Size | 1280 x 720 pixels |
| Field of View | 2.4 x 1.5 mm |
| Culture | well-plates, petri dishes, flasks, microfluidic chips and custom culture vessels |
| Computer Requirements | Windows 10 |
| Power Supply | AC 100-240V, 2A, 10W, 50/60HZ |
| Dimensions | 13.3 x 9.0 x 10.0 cm (L x W x H) |
| 5.2 x 3.5 x 3.9 in (L x W x H) | |
| Weight | 0.5 kg (1.1 lb) |
| Operating Conditions | 0 - 42 °C, 5-95% humidity |
| Warranty | 1 year parts & labor |
| Research use only. Not intended for diagnostic purposes |
Appnotes
Cell Culture Monitoring - Lux2
Cell Motility Video Monitoring - Lux2
Downloads
Frequently Asked Questions
The CytoSMART Lux2 is a compact inverted microscope that is designed to be placed inside an incubator to monitor cell cultures. The device can be used as a notification system to alert users when a cell culture confluence target is reached.
No calibration by the user is needed for the device to operate.
The device can be used with a Windows based tablet or PC. A WiFi or Ethernet internet connection is required to be able to connect to the CytoSMART server for data storage and analysis.
The CytoSMART Lux2 allows monitoring of a wide range of different culture dishes and flasks, such as:
- T-flasks: T-25 up to T-250
- Single well, multi-well plates (6, 12, 24, 96 well)
- microfluidic chips
- Flat tubes
- Petri dishes
- Slides
For larger flasks an adapter plate may be required. This plate can be purchased at CytoSMART.
The CytoSMART Lux2 has a magnification equal to a microscope with a 10X and 20X lens.
The CytoSMART Lux2 records images at predefined intervals. At the start of a new project you can specify the interval rate from an image every 5 minutes to every 12 hours
The device is easy to clean using lint-free swipes and EtOH (70%) or IPA. Do not use Acetone to clean the device, also the device cannot be autoclaved.
After sterilizing with EtOH or IPA the device can be used in a clean room.
Cell Culture Monitoring - Lux2
Setting up cell cultures is easy enough. However monitoring your cultures and optimization is time-consuming and cumbersome. Waiting for the ideal confluency, quickly studying effects of various media means taking your cells in and out of the incubator more often than you would like.
Visualizing cell cultures from inside an incubator using a compact microscope that facilitates live cell imaging can overcome these issues. While live cell imaging has been restricted to costly, high-end devices, the CytoSMART Lux2 offers an affordable and easy-to-use alternative for virtually any lab. The CytoSMART Lux2 can be set up in minutes, enabling untrained users to quickly perform their own time-lapse recordings.
Images and videos can be easily accessed and retrieved from the CytoSMART cloud portal. Advanced functions, such as reporting of cell confluency, cell migration analysis and the option to use automatic confluency email alerts, can be applied to inform the user when certain culture conditions are reached (for example, once the cell culture has reached the desired confluency). Hence, the CytoSMART Lux2 can be used in many different ways to facilitate cell culture work and research.
In the following appnote several examples of applications of the CytoSMART Lux2 will be shown.
- Culturing cells in hypoxic conditions
- Standardizing cell culturing conditions
- The effect of confluency on transfection efficiency
Cell Motility Video Monitoring - Lux2
Movement of cells plays a critical role in the development of cancer. Analyzing the motility of cells in vitro is therefor important for many cancer researchers.
Live-cell imaging, and in particular label-free live-cell imaging, is well suited to capture dynamic processes in cell culture without potential side-effects of markers or dyes on the cells. In the text below we will discuss the suitability of the CytoSMARTTM
Lux for several assays relevant for cancer research
We will discuss
- Introduction to the Lux cell monitoring system
- Tube formation assays
- 2D migration assays
- 3D invasion assays