Chitozen
The 1st functionalized microscope coverslip to image live bacterial cells & study their growth and behavior.
Chitozen is a chitosan-coated coverlip compatible with 6-channel sticky slides.
What is it intended for?
Use it if you want to image bacteria both still and alive under the microscope. Or if you want to perform long-term imaging of bacteria. Or if you want to change the growth condition (e.g. antibiotics, chemicals, inhibitors) during the experiment and directly observe, in real-time, the bacteria new comportment under the microscope.
For which bacteria? E. coli, Vibrio cholerae, Myxococcus xanthus, Mycobacterium smegmatis, Bacillus subtilis, Pseudomonas aeruginosa and Pseudomonas fluorescens. More bacteria being currently tested by our Test Program users.
Kit description & technical datasheet
Designed by
Tâm Mignot, Olivier Theodoly, Amandine Desorme, Guillaume Sudre
and
Laurent David
Published in
mBio
See below 2 videos with E. coli.
How to use Chitozen
Feedback from the community
E. coli
Mycobacterium smegmatis
Bacillus subtilis
Pseudomonas fluorescens.
NB: These results supplement those obtained by Tâm Mignot and al. with:
E. coli
Vibrio cholerae
Myxococcus xanthus
Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Tracking of DNA repair proteins in live cells of Escherichia coli
"Cells expressing HaloTagged DNA repair proteins were loaded onto the chitosan-coated coverslip and imaged with TIRF microscopy. The Chitozen technology enables tracking single-molecules while changing environmental conditions (e.g: M9 or M9 + mutagen). Computation of the diffusion coefficients provides insights into how proteins change their mobility upon DNA damage".
Credit: Maxence Vincent - University of Oxford – 2022
Time-lapse images of E. coli growing: Localization of F-plasmid
By Jerome Rech, LMGM-CBI-CNRS, Toulouse, 2022
Cells are observed in phase contrast (top), in the blue and yellow channels for fluorescence microcopy to observe phase contrast, nucleoid (DAPI) or F-plasmid (mVenus tag), respectively.
Overlays of phase contrast and blue or yellow channel are shown on middle or bottom panels, respectively.
Cells were grown at 30°C in supplemented M9 minimal media containing Cystein and DAPI under continuous flow. Scale bar (2 µm).
Features
Long lasting
A bench-stable surface coated with chitosan, the most efficient way to immobilize your bacteria on a microscope coverslip
S torable for 2 months once assembled
6 independent channels
Either perform up to 6 experiments at the same time or use 1 channel one day, and the others later
Full compatibility with most of your conditions of experiments
Optical microscopy techniques: TIRF, super-resolution (3D-SIM)
Size: the coverslip dimension (25x75 mm) is compatible with the most common available sticky slides and microscope stages.
Compatible with advanced microfluidic techniques, nanolithography, PDMS
Ready and fast
Assemble it within 2 minutes
Use it the same day it is prepared
Gallery
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The Chitozen video protocol
Simplified protocol
Hardware
µ-Slide Microscopy Rack
Eppendorf® Centrifuge 5430 & Rotor 5430R A-2-MTP
Clamp and adapter for sticky slides
Bottomless 6 channels sticky slides (sterilized and welded in a gas-permeable packaging)
LB medium
LB ½ medium
Milli-Q® water
E. coli - Mycobacterium smegmatis - Bacillus subtilis - Pseudomonas fluorescens - Vibrio cholerae - Myxococcus xanthus - Pseudomonas aeruginosa.
Going further: perfuse the system with flow
Chitozen and us
Tâm Mignot, Olivier Théodoly, Amandine Desorme, Guillaume Sudre, Laurent David
Contact the developers about their technology
Esther Graudens New projects at Idylle
And if you are interested in seeing what you can do with chitosan-coated coverslips, you can have a look at this study published by the team of developers in 2019. They've managed to use chitosan-coated coverslips to promote the growth of cells without any deleterious effect on their physiology, allowing them to measure the antibiotic susceptibiliy of a diversity of clinical strains with an excellent accuracy in a very short period of time. Read all about it here: mBio, 2019"