Imaging with the Microscopy and BioImaging Facility at the Leloir Institute Foundation, Buenos Aires, Argentina.

Posted by FocalPlane, on 9 November 2023

In our ‘Imaging with…’ blog post, we meet the staff of the Microscopy and BioImaging Facility at the Leloir Institute Foundation, Buenos Aires.

Staff role call:

Andres Hugo Rossi, Core Facility Manager & Microscopy
Expertise: confocal microscope, experimental design, repairing unfunded equipment, managing and developing facilities
Most likely to be found talking to someone, planning new projects or things to improve!

Carla A. Pascuale, Cytometry & Microscopy
Expertise: confocal microscopy, flow cytometry, design of experiments, user training, image analysis
Most likely to be found talking about fluorescence overlaps and asking for controls from the users who have ‘forgotten them’.

Esteban A. Miglietta, Image Analysis & Microscopy
Expertise: confocal microscopy, image analysis, impromptu coding, meme generation and overall staff nutrition.
Most likely to be found in front of a computer, making training material with fun pictures or toying with an image analysis pipeline for our users. Currently based at the Broad Institute of Harvard and MIT doing a postdoc on image analysis.

Cecilia Rotondaro, Histology & Microscopy
Expertise: histology, microscopy, image analysis
Most likely to be found in the laboratory doing magic by transforming experimental samples into amazing and fantastic images, which then she runs to the microscope to analyze the results.

Natalia Cataldi, Cell Culture & Histology
Expertise: Cell culture, equipment maintenance managing.
Most likely to be found at the office in front of the PC organizing the workday, supervising the cell culture areas and sharing Mate (a traditional South American herbal drink) and cookies with Pame and Ceci.

Pamela Rodriguez, Serology & Cytometry
Expertise: Handling and processing biological samples for serology and microscopy
Most likely to be found correcting protocols and manuscripts, reading ELISA plates, or assisting in cytometry.

Microscope role call:

LSM 5 Pascal (Zeiss), LSM Meta 510 (Zeiss), LSM 710 (Zeiss), LSM 880 with Airyscan (Zeiss, inverted), Axio Observer 3 (Zeiss, inverted), InCell Analyzer 2200 image cytometer (GE), 2 epifluorescence and 2 dissecting scopes, FACS Aria Fusion flow cytometer (BD), microtome and cryostat.

Who can access the facility?

Anyone and everyone who seeks our support for their experiments, from design to data acquisition and analysis. In the microscopy facility in particular, most of our users are researchers and students from our institute (over 90 current users), but we also assist external users (around 20 from neighbouring institutes and 6 users from industry last year). Our policy is to generate quality bioimages that provide useful information to science and its applications; anyone who requires this service is welcome.

The following section has been answered by Andres Hugo Rossi and represents his personal opinion.

Pet peeve in microscope users
I once found a user listening to music with a speaker resting on the laser module which, up to that point, had all the optical paths lined up!

Favourite microscope
LSM 880!!!

Favourite thing to image
Plants are excellent imaging material! We love imaging them.

Best bit of advice (that you give or have been given)
Just before I started, one of my mentors told me, “there is no ceiling here, everything is to be done and you can go as high as you want”. That left me with the feeling that the only ceiling was my own, so since then I enjoy raising it!

If money was no object, we would buy…
Today, it would be a LSM 980 with all its accessories and modules, it could be used by many groups.

Can you give us some examples of recent papers that were published with your assistance?

Plant Physiol 2023 – “Transcription factor NAC1 activates expression of peptidase-encoding AtCEPs in roots to limit root hair growth” D Rodríguez-García, Y Guerrero, L Ferrero, A Rossi, E Miglietta, A Aptekmann, E Marzol, J Pacheco, M Carignani, V Gabarain, L Lopez, G Dominguez, C Borassi, J Serrano, Lin Xu, A Nadra, E Rojo, F Ariel, J Estevez. DOI: 10.1093/plphys/kiad533.

JMB 2022 – “Biomolecular condensation of the human papillomavirus E2 master regulator with p53: Implications in viral replication” S. Borkosky, M. Fassolari, K. Campos-León, A. H. Rossi, M. Salgueiro, C. Pascuale, R. Martínez, K. Gaston, G. de Prat Gay. DOI: 10.1016/j.jmb.2022.167889.

Frontiers in Immunology 2022 – “Humoral response and neutralizing capacity at 6 months postvaccination against COVID-19 among institutionalized older adults in Argentina”, P Rodriguez, A Silva, E Miglietta, P Rall, C A Pascuale, C Ballejo, L L Miranda, A S Ríos, L Ramis, J Marro, V Poncet, B Mazzitelli, M Salvatori, A Ceballos, M M G L Ledesma, D S Ojeda, M F Aguirre, Y Miragaya, A Gamarnik, A H Rossi; Laboratorio SeVa Group; PAMI Group. DOI: 10.3389/fimmu.2022.992370.

How should users acknowledge the facility and why is it important?

Scientific publication remains one of the most important metrics for academia. The facilities, as well as their staff, are also evaluated on these metrics. Thus, it is essential for their development that the proper credit is assigned in scientific works: from a mention in the “acknowledgements” section to co-authorships. This is a topic that is currently being discussed at a global level by Global BioImaging with the intention of improving and clarifying the development possibilities.

We are currently working together with the authorities and the scientific community of the institute towards creating suggested guidelines for the users of the services on how to acknowledge the service, according to its the role in their scientific publications. It is not an easy task, but we are moving forward.

We consider that the most important factor in reaching an agreement is an open and sincere debate among the scientists involved.