Alligator Luminescence System

• Circadian rhythm measurements
• Calcium recordings (Aequorin)
• Plant sciences

Product Description

Light tight enclosure for sensitive optical recordings.

The ALLIGATOR comprises of a high-sensitivity EMCCD camera mounted with high resolution and anti-mist optics enclosed within a custom humidified CO2/N2 170 L tissue culture incubator and light-tight shroud. The ALLIGATOR can image up to six 96-well plates simultaneously and supports recording from a wide variety of cell types, tissues, and organotypic slices. In addition, the ALLIGATOR affords programmable control of temperature, % CO2, and % O2 allowing long-term bioluminescence recordings under physiologically relevant conditions. The system is fully supported in all commercial software imaging packages (Micromanager, Visiview, NIS-Elements, etc).

This fantastic new system offers the capacity for high-throughput collection over time scales that vary from seconds to weeks, without sacrificing the quality of the data collected. The flexible and sensitive environmental control gives us the ability to do experiments which would simply not be possible otherwise. 

Dr. John S. O’Neill, MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology, University of Cambridge

A jove video showing how the ALLIGATOR can be used in the context of circadian rhythms research (thanks to John O’Neill’s lab, Cambridge)

 

Manuals video support Get a Quote Back to Bioluminescence

Additional information

Applications

• Circadian rhythm measurements – seconds to weeks
• Calcium recordings (Aequorin)
• Plant sciences

Key Benefits

• High throughput, up to six 96 well plates imaged simultaneously
• Precise environmental control
• LED illumination for circadian rhythm stimulation
• High aperture lens with demisting optics
• Light-tight, does not require a dark room
• Software control of all environmental conditions and illumination

Specification

The Alligator system includes the following modifications:
• Secondary shroud for complete light tightness
• F/0.95 lens with anti-mist heater
• Anti-reflective stainless steel racks
• Multi well plate alignment
• External focus adjustment
• Photon trap of CO2 sensor
• Illumination ring
• Supported in various software packages
• Custom scripting for multi-well recordings and data export

Additional information

2021

2019

  • Insulin/IGF-1 Drives PERIOD Synthesis to Entrain Circadian Rhythms with Feeding Time – Read here

Pre 2019

1) Circadian actin dynamics drive rhythmic fibroblast mobilization during wound healing – Read Here
2) Flexible Measurement of Bioluminescent Reporters Using an Automated Longitudinal Luciferase Imaging Gas- and Temperature-optimized Recorder (ALLIGATOR) – Read Here
3) The Pentose Phosphate Pathway Regulates the Circadian Clock – Read Here
4) In-depth Characterization of Firefly Luciferase as a Reporter of Circadian Gene Expression in Mammalian Cells – Read Here