TRI: Cellular and Molecular Imaging Facility

Our instruments are housed either in standard or Biosafety Level 3 (BSL3) conditions to permit the work with a large nature of samples, including virulent human pathogens.

Access to the core facility is opened to academic as well as private research laboratories without geographical, thematic or institutional restriction. The access to the facility is possible through full service (experiments performed by facility’s engineers), as a fee for hour of equipment usage or as a R&D collaboration to setup new or customised models and/or analyses. Our facility is certified ISO 9001:2008 and NFX 50-900 and integrates the regional platform TRI-Genotoul.

Asrir et al. (2022) Tumor-associated high endothelial venules mediate lymphocyte entry into tumors and predict response to PD-1 plus CTLA-4 combination immunotherapy. Cancer Cell.

Zell et al. (2021) Dual targeting of higher-order DNA structures by azacryptands induces DNA junction-mediated DNA damage in cancer cells. Nucleic Acids Res.

Clement et al. (2020) Adipocyte extracellular vesicles carry enzymes and fattyacids that stimulate mitochondrial metabolism and remodeling in tumor cells. EMBO J.

Freire et al. (2019) An NAD⁺ Phosphorylase Toxin Triggers Mycobacterium tuberculosis Cell Death. Mol Cell

Markelc et al. (2018) Increased permeability of blood vessels after reversible electroporation is facilitated by alterations in endothelial cell-to-cell junctions. J Control Release.

Gui et al. (2018) The Protease-Dependent Mesenchymal Migration of Tumor-Associated Macrophages as a Target in Cancer Immunotherapy. Cancer Immunol Res.

Métais et al. (2018) The Asb2α-Filamin A axis is essential for actin cytoskeleton remodeling during heart development. Circulation Research

Barlerin et al. (2017). Biosafety Level 3 setup for multiphoton microscopy in vivo. Sci Rep

Multiphoton microscopy (MPM) has revealed important insights into cell-cell interactions and dynamic behavior of cells in vivo, which is due to its ability to provide four-dimensional (x, y, z and time) imaging of tissues over depths of several hundreds of microns while limiting phototoxicity and photobleaching. However, the use of MPM in the context of infections by BSL3 microorganisms that are associated with serious/lethal disease in humans, in particular those transmitted by aerosols, remains a significant challenge. In collaboration with Eurobioconcept and Laviosion Biotech we have designed and validated a bio-confinement strategy to permit the use of MPM in BSL3 settings while respecting biosafety regulations. For this we employed a two-pronged approach for biosafety confinement of the MPM setup. First, we built a custom-made Class III Biosafety Cabinet (BSC) under negative pressure to confine the infectious material being imaged and to prevent any contamination from reaching the other parts of the microscope. Second, we confined the laser components within a modified Class I BSC under positive pressure with HEPA filtered air, thus preventing any contamination to reach any of its parts, even in the case of a leak on the class III BSC or an incident within the room. Our strategy is essential to unlock the use of MPM approaches in BSL3 settings and will help driving in vivo imaging studies of human pathogens.