6th ESACP Congress, Heidelberg, April 7-11, 1999

A068
RECONSTRUCTION OF AXIALTOMOGRAPHIC HIGH RESOLUTION DATA FROM A CONFOCAL MICROSCOPE
Heintzmann R, Kreth G, Cremer C

Applied Optics and Information Processing, Institute of Applied Physics, University of Heidelberg, Germany

In the threedimensional analysis of the nucleus of the cell, a high resolution in all three directions of space is of major importance. Images optained with a standard confocal microscope have the drawback of a comparatively small resolution along the optical axis. By rotating the cell under the microscope it is possible to obtain confocal images where the axial direction points into different directions inside the cell. A new technique for computation of a high-resolution three dimensional image from a few datastacks obtained with this axialtomographic method will be presented. Such reconstructed images are shown to have a resolution in all three directions comparable to the high lateral resolution of deconvolved confocal images. Modell-data from a chromosomal territory were simulated using standard confocal microscopy with deconvolution and this axialtomographic technique with reconstruction.