Research / Core Facilities

College of Medicine Research Core Facilities

The UC College of Medicine houses several research core facilities designated as core service centers. These facilities exist within multiple departments but are collectively supported by the College of Medicine Office of Research through the Associate Dean for Research Core Facilities: Ken Greis, PhD. (ken.greis@uc.edu; Tel: 513-558-7102).

The service center designation signifies the rates charged by each of these facilities have been reviewed and approved by the UC Government Cost Compliance Office; thus, the service fees can be charged to federal grants and contracts. Details related to the services offered and the internal rates for each of the cores are provided below. Since these rates are substantially subsidized by the University, external investigators should contact individual core directors to get a rate quote.

Resources to offset some of the cost of the core services may be available through a variety of centers and institutes across UC depending on an investigator’s affiliation. Information for support from the CCTST is provided here:

UC invesitgators also hvae full access to shared resource cores at Cincinnati Children's Hospital. Details are provided here:

We have recently transitioned our core facilities booking and management to the PPMS system from Stratocore. To book and access services from the core facilities, please log in or create an account in Stratocore via:

My PPMS Dashboard

Stratocore Account Creation Guides:

New UC PI Account Creation
New UC User Account Creation
New External User Account Creation

Live Microscopy Core (LMC)

The Live Microscopy Core facility is designed to help investigators perform high resolution fluorescence imaging with both living and fixed specimens. The facility provides training and access to multiple laser scanning confocal microscopes, as well as widefield, stereo and dissection microscopes. Additional equipment available for use are a Laser Capture Microdissection instrument, multimode plate reader, Real-Time-PCR systems, infrared imager, and cryostat.

NEW! We now have a high-end image analysis workstation with Imaris, as well as other common analysis tools such as ImageJ (FIJI), Leica LAS X, and Zeiss ZEN.

To book equipment and/or access services from the LMC, please login or create an account in Stratocore at https://ppms.us/uc/start/.

Location & Hours:
The core is located in Medical Sciences Building Room 3155. It is open 24/7 for approved trained users, or from 9 am to 5 pm, Monday through Friday for technical assistance.

Acknowledgement

Please acknowledge the Live Microscopy Core in any work you publish or present using our facility. This will help us demonstrate the Core’s value to the UC research community and will contribute greatly in our efforts to secure funding for new instruments and services. Please send full citations for your publications to chet.closson@uc.edu so we can accurately track our research contributions. We appreciate your support!

* For any publication that includes data acquired from the Leica Stellaris Confocal Microscope, you must acknowledge the NIH S10 award used to acquire this instrument. Example acknowledgment:
"Research reported in this publication was supported by the Office of the Director, National Institutes of Health under Award Number S10OD030402. The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health."

Grant Information

A general NIH description of facilities and equipment for this core may be accessed with this link - LMC NIH Summary May 2024; however, it is highly recommended that you discuss your specific core needs with the core director or manager while preparing the grant application since they can likely provide tailored information regarding their capabilities to enhance your application.

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ServiceCost
Leica Stellaris 8 Confocal Microscope: Prime Hours Usage (per hour, Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm)
 $40
Leica Stellaris 8 Confocal Microscope: Off Hours Usage (per hour, all times not covered by Prime Hours)
 $30
Zeiss LSM Confocal/Multiphoton Microscopes: Prime Hours Usage (per hour, Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm)
 $35
Zeiss LSM Confocal/Multiphoton Microscopes: Off Hours Usage (per hour, all times not covered by Prime Hours)
 $25
Widefield Microscopes: Prime Hours Usage (per hour, Mon-Fri, 9am-5pm)
 $15
Widefield Microscopes: Off Hours Usage (per hour, all times not covered by Prime Hours)
 $10
Technician Assistance: Training or Assisted Imaging (per hour)
 $48.65 + Instrument Rate
ArcturusXT Laser Capture MicroDissection (per hour)
 $40
Real-Time PCR (per plate)
 $15
Li-Cor Odyssey Infrared Imager (unlimited access per year)
 $250
Leica Cryostat (unlimited access per year)
 $250
Leica Stereo Microscope (unlimited access per year)
 $250
PerkinElmer EnVision Multi Mode Plate Reader (unlimited access per year)
 $250
Imaris Image Analysis Workstation (unlimited access per year)
 $300
Imaris Image Analysis Workstation Technician Assistance or Training (per hour)
 $48.65
LSM 710 LIVE Duo Confocal Microscope

Equipped with two separate scanning units, the fast-speed line (LIVE) scanner (up to 120 frames/sec at 512x512) and the LSM710 high-resolution point scanner, integrated into the same microscope. Point Scanner: 6 laser lines (405, 458, 488, 514, 560, 633nm) and 4 detectors (3 spectral confocal fluorescence plus 1 transmitted light detector). LIVE fast line scanner: 3 laser lines (405, 488, 560nm) and 2 confocal fluorescence detectors. The Duo system allows the two scanners to be used in combination for complex, high-speed bleaching or photomanipulation experiments. Temperature-controlled environmental chamber encasing entire microscope.

Zeiss

LSM 510 NLO Two-Photon Microscope

4 lasers (Ti-Sa [700-990 nm; wavelength selection under computer control], Ar [458,477,488,514 nm], Green HeNe [543 nm] and Red HeNe [633 nm]), 6 detectors [3 confocal fluorescence/reflectance, 1 Nomarski transmitted, 2 non-descanned high sensitivity two-photon detectors]). Inverted microscope stage enclosed in light-tight, temperature-controlled environmental chamber. Useful for deep tissue imaging (better than standard confocal) while retaining subcellular resolution in living tissue. The two-photon absorption also allows fluorophore uncaging, cell damage/ablation, spectral shifting, and other photo-catalytic events to be performed with sub-micron resolution in three dimensions.

Zeiss

DMi8 Widefield Fluorescence Microscope

Widefield microscope system equipped with a stage-top incubation chamber for live time-lapse imaging experiments in brightfield and fluorescence. Color camera for histology and phase contrast imaging, and high-sensitivity Hamamatsu ORCA-ER cooled CCD camera for fluorescence imaging. Sola LED light source and 4 fluorescence filters (DAPI, GFP, Texas Red, CY5). Motorized stage enables image stitching of large regions at high magnification.

Leica

Leica Stellaris 8 Confocal Microscope

Inverted laser scanning confocal microscope. The Leica Stellaris 8 Spectral confocal microscope offers maximum flexibility in both choosing an excitation wavelength and detecting a fluorophore's emission. Our system has 5 Power HyD detectors, providing high sensitivity across a broad spectral range. The White Light Laser (WLL) combined with Leica's proprietary Acousto-Optical Beam Splitter (AOBS), enables the use of up to 8 simultaneous independent laser lines. The WLL allows you to choose any excitation wavelength between 440 and 790 nm. When combined with the Power HyD R detector, you can detect fluorophores in the near infrared range, such as Cy7 (detection out to 850nm). An additional 405nm laser offers excitation for UV probes such as DAPI and Hoechst. Leica's TauSense uses fluorescence lifetime to provide a measure of contrast (TauContrast) that is independent from fluorescent intensity. The TauSense imaging tools include TauContrast, TauGating which uses differences in average photon arrival time to remove unwanted background and TauSeparation for multiplexing using differences in fluorescence lifetime. This confocal is on a fully motorized Leica DMi8 inverted microscope. With the Resonant scanner this microscope can scan images at high speed, comparable to that of a spinning disc confocal. The LIGHTNING module allows for super-resolution microscopy (~120nm). The tiling function in the Leica LAS X software and the motorized stage allows one to collect multiple images across a large field of view using a high magnification objective. The Tokai Hit incubation chamber provides complete environmental control: Regulating CO2, humidity and temperature. This microscope is available now in the Live Microscopy Core.

Leica

Andrea L. Matthis, Izumi Kaji, Kristen A. Engevik, Yasutada Akiba, Jonathan D. Kaunitz, Marshall H. Montrose, Eitaro Aihara. September 2019. Deficient Active Transport Activity in Healing Mucosa After Mild Gastric Epithelial Damage. Digestive Diseases and Sciences

Hanyu H, Engevik KA, Matthis AL, Ottemann KM, Montrose MH, Aihara E. 2019. Helicobacter pylori uses the TlpB receptor to sense sites of gastric injury. Infect Immun 87:e00202-19.

Engevik KA, Hanyu H, Matthis AL, Zhang T, Frey MR, Oshima Y, Aihara E, Montrose MH. Trefoil factor 2 activation of CXCR4 requires calcium mobilization to drive epithelial repair in gastric organoids. Physiol. 2019 May;597(10):2673-2690. doi: 10.1113/JP277259. Epub 2019 Apr 14.

Aihara E, Medina-Candelaria NM, Hanyu H, Matthis AL, Engevik KA, Gurniak CB, Witke W, Turner JR, Zhang T, Montrose MH. Cell injury triggers actin polymerization to initiate epithelial restitution. J Cell Sci. 2018 Aug 20;131(16). pii: jcs216317. doi: 10.1242/jcs.216317.

Engevik KA, Matthis AL, Montrose MH, Aihara E. Organoids as a Model to Study Infectious Disease. Methods Mol Biol. 2018;1734:71-81. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-7604-1_8.

Manoharan P, Song T, Radzyukevich TL, Sadayappan S, Lingrel JB, Heiny JA. KLF2 in Myeloid Lineage Cells Regulates the Innate Immune Response during Skeletal Muscle Injury and Regeneration. iScience. 2019 Jul 26;17:334-346. doi: 10.1016/j.isci.2019.07.009. Epub 2019 Jul 8.

Ballweg R, Lee S, Han X, Maini PK, Byrne H, Hong CI, Zhang T. Unraveling the Control of Cell Cycle Periods during Intestinal Stem Cell Differentiation. Biophys J. 2018 Dec 4;115(11):2250-2258. doi: 10.1016/j.bpj.2018.10.025. Epub 2018 Nov 3.

Lee KK, McCauley HA, Broda TR, Kofron MJ, Wells JM, Hong CI. Human stomach-on-a-chip with luminal flow and peristaltic-like motility. Lab Chip. 2018 Oct 9;18(20):3079-3085. doi: 10.1039/c8lc00910d.

Baek M, Virgilio S, Lamb TM, Ibarra O, Andrade JM, Gonçalves RD, Dovzhenok A, Lim S, Bell-Pedersen D, Bertolini MC, Hong CI. Circadian clock regulation of the glycogen synthase (gsn) gene by WCC is critical for rhythmic glycogen metabolism in Neurospora crassa. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2019 May 21;116(21):10435-10440. doi: 10.1073/pnas.1815360116. Epub 2019 May 2.

Kleene SJ, Siroky BJ, Landero-Figueroa JA, Dixon BP, Pachciarz NW, Lu L, Kleene NK. The TRPP2-dependent channel of renal primary cilia also requires TRPM3. PLoS One. 2019 Mar 18;14(3):e0214053. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0214053. eCollection 2019.

Adhikari U, An X, Rijal N, Hopkins T, Khanal S, Chavez T, Tatu R, Sankar J, Little KJ, Hom DB, Bhattarai N, Pixley SK. Embedding magnesium metallic particles in polycaprolactone nanofiber mesh improves applicability for biomedical applications. Acta Biomater. 2019 May 3. pii: S1742-7061(19)30315-0. doi: 10.1016/j.actbio.2019.04.061.

Steele NG, Chakrabarti J, Wang J, Biesiada J, Holokai L, Chang J, Nowacki LM, Hawkins J, Mahe M, Sundaram N, Shroyer N, Medvedovic M, Helmrath M, Ahmad S, Zavros Y. An Organoid-Based Preclinical Model of Human Gastric Cancer. Cell Mol Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2019;7(1):161-184. doi: 10.1016/j.jcmgh.2018.09.008. Epub 2018 Sep 20.

Chakrabarti J, Holokai L, Syu L, Steele NG, Chang J, Wang J, Ahmed S, Dlugosz A, Zavros Y. Hedgehog signaling induces PD-L1 expression and tumor cell proliferation in gastric cancer. Oncotarget. 2018 Dec 21;9(100):37439-37457. doi: 10.18632/oncotarget.26473. eCollection 2018 Dec 21.

Holokai L, Chakrabarti J, Broda T, Chang J, Hawkins JA, Sundaram N, Wroblewski LE, Peek RM Jr, Wang J, Helmrath M, Wells JM, Zavros Y. Increased Programmed Death-Ligand 1 is an Early Epithelial Cell Response to Helicobacter pylori Infection. PLoS Pathog. 2019 Jan 31;15(1):e1007468. doi: 10.1371/journal.ppat.1007468. eCollection 2019 Jan.

Song et al. Dilated cardiomyopathy-mediated heart failure induces a unique skeletal muscle myopathy with inflammation. Skeletal Muscle (2019) 9:4

A. A. Chimote, A. Balajthy, M. J. Arnold, H. S. Newton, P. Hajdu, J. Qualtieri, T. Wise-Draper, L. Conforti, A defect in KCa3.1 channel activity limits the ability of CD8+ T cells from cancer patients to infiltrate an adenosine-rich microenvironment. Sci. Signal. 11, eaaq1616 (2018).

Engevik KA, Matthis AL, Montrose MH, Aihara E. Organoids as a Model to Study Infectious Disease. Methods Mol Biol. 2018;1734:71-81. doi: 10.1007/978-1-4939-7604-1_8.

Aihara E, Medina-Candelaria NM, Hanyu H, Matthis AL, Engevik KA, Gurniak CB, Witke W, Turner JR, Zhang T, Montrose MH. Cell injury triggers actin polymerization to initiate epithelial restitution. J Cell Sci. 2018 Aug 20;131(16). pii: jcs216317. doi: 10.1242/jcs.216317.

Teal E., Bertaux-Skeirik N., Chakrabarti J., Holokai L., Zavros Y. (2018) Establishment of Human- and Mouse-Derived Gastric Primary Epithelial Cell Monolayers from Organoids. In: Baratta M. (eds) Epithelial Cell Culture. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1817. Humana Press, New York, NY

Chakrabarti J. et al. (2018) Mouse-Derived Gastric Organoid and Immune Cell Co-culture for the Study of the Tumor Microenvironment. In: Baratta M. (eds) Epithelial Cell Culture. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 1817. Humana Press, New York, NY

Essandoh, et.al. Tsg101 positively regulates physiologic-like cardiac hypertrophy through FIP3-mediated endosomal recycling of IGF-1R. FASEB Mar 2019

Karve SS, Pradhan S, Ward DV, Weiss AA. Intestinal organoids model human responses to infection by commensal and Shiga toxin producing Escherichia coli. PLoS One. 2017 Jun 14;12(6):e0178966. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0178966. eCollection 2017.

Liu G-S, Gardner G, Adly G, et al. A novel human S10F-Hsp20 mutation induces lethal peripartum cardiomyopathy. J Cell Mol Med. 2018; 22:3911– 3919. https://doi.org/10.1111/jcmm.13665

Bidwell PA, Liu GS, Nagarajan N, Lam CK, Haghighi K, Gardner G, Cai WF, Zhao W, Mugge L, Vafiadaki E, Sanoudou D, Rubinstein J, Lebeche D, Hajjar R, Sadoshima J, Kranias EG. HAX-1 regulates SERCA2a oxidation and degradation. J Mol Cell Cardiol. 2018 Jan; 114:220-233. doi: 10.1016/j.yjmcc.2017.11.014. Epub 2017 Nov 21.

Guan-Sheng Liu, Hongyan Zhu, Wen-Feng Cai, Xiaohong Wang, Min Jiang, Kobina Essandoh, Elizabeth Vafiadaki, Kobra Haghighi, Chi Keung Lam, George Gardner, George Adly, Persoulla Nicolaou, Despina Sanoudou, Qiangrong Liang, Jack Rubinstein, Guo-Chang Fan & Evangelia G. Kranias (2018) Regulation of BECN1-mediated autophagy by HSPB6: Insights from a human HSPB6S10F mutant, Autophagy,14:1, 80-97, DOI: 10.1080/15548627.2017.1392420

Philip A. Bidwell, Kobra Haghighi, Evangelia G. Kranias. The antiapoptotic protein HAX-1 mediates half of phospholamban's inhibitory activity on calcium cycling and contractility in the heart. January 5, 2018. The Journal of Biological Chemistry 293, 359-367.

Zhen Y, Finkelman, FD, Shao WH. Mechanism of Mer receptor tyrosine kinase inhibition of glomerular endothelial cell inflammation. J Leukoc Biol. 2018 Apr;103(4):709-17.

Zhen Y, Lee IJ, Finkelman FD, Shao WH. Targeted inhibition of Axl receptor tyrosine kinase ameliorates anti-GBM-induced lupus-like nephritis. J. Autoimmun. 2018 Jun 9.

Zhou L, Yang K, Dunaway S, Abdel-Malek Z, Andl T, Kadekaro AL, Zhang Y. Suppression of MAPK signaling in BRAF-activated PTEN-deficient melanoma by blocking ß-catenin signaling in cancer-associated fibroblasts. Pigment Cell Melanoma Res. 2018 Mar;31(2):297-307. doi: 10.1111/pcmr.12657. Epub 2017 Nov 5.

Matsu-Ura T, Dovzhenok A, Aihara E, Rood J, Le H, Ren Y, Rosselot AE, Zhang T, Lee C, Obrietan K, Montrose MH, Lim S, Moore SR, Hong CI. Intercellular Coupling of the Cell Cycle and Circadian Clock in Adult Stem Cell Culture.

Lee KK, Labiscsak L, Ahn CH, Hong CI. Spiral-based microfluidic device for long-term time course imaging of Neurospora crassa with single nucleus resolution. Fungal Genet Biol. 2016 Sep;94:11-4. doi: 10.1016/j.fgb.2016.06.004.

Aihara E, Closson C, Matthis AL, Schumacher MA, Engevik AC, et al. (2014) Motility and Chemotaxis Mediate the Preferential Colonization of Gastric Injury Sites by Helicobacter pylori. PLOS Pathogens 10(7): e1004275.

Kyle W. McCracken, Eitaro Aihara, Baptiste Martin, Calyn M. Crawford, Taylor Broda, Julie Treguier, Xinghao Zhang, John M. Shannon, Marshall H. Montrose & James M. Wells. Wnt/ß-catenin promotes gastric fundus specification in mice and humans. Nature 541, 182-187 (12 January 2017).

Bertaux-Skeirik N, Feng R, SchumacherMA, Li J, Mahe MM, Engevik AC, et al. (2015) CD44Plays a Functional Role in Helicobacter pylori-induced Epithelial Cell Proliferation. PLoS Pathog 11(2): e1004663. doi:10.1371/journal.ppat.1004663

Karve SS, Pradhan S, Ward DV, Weiss AA (2017) Intestinal organoids model human responses to infection by commensal and Shiga toxin producing Escherichia coli. PLoS ONE 12(6): e0178966

Nina Bertaux-Skeirik, Mark Wunderlich, Emma Teal, Jayati Chakrabarti, Jacek Biesiada, Maxime Mahe, Nambirajan Sundaram, Joel Gabre, Jennifer Hawkins, Gao Jian, Amy C. Engevik, Li Yang, Jiang Wang, James R. Goldenring, Joseph E. Qualls, Mario Medvedovic, Michael A. Helmrath, Tayyab Diwan, James C. Mulloy, and Yana Zavros. CD44 variant isoform 9 emerges in response to injury and contributes to the regeneration of the gastric epithelium. J Pathol. 2017 August ; 242(4): 463–475

Amy C. Engevik, Rui Feng, Eunyoung Choi, Shana White, Nina Bertaux-Skeirik, Jing Li, Maxime M. Mahe, Eitaro Aihara, Li Yang, Betsy DiPasquale, Sunghee Oh, Kristen A. Engevik, Andrew S. Giraud, Marshall H. Montrose, Mario Medvedovic, Michael A. Helmrath, James R. Goldenring, and Yana Zavros. The Development of Spasmolytic Polypeptide/TFF2-Expressing Metaplasia (SPEM) During Gastric Repair Is Absent in the Aged Stomach. Cell Mol Gastroenterol Hepatol. 2016 Sep; 2(5): 605–624

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