3D print customized sample holders for live light sheet microscopy

A major hurdle to the widespread application of light sheet microscopy is the lack of versatile and non-intrusive sample holders that are adaptable to a variety of biological samples for live imaging. To overcome this limitation, we present herein the application of 3D printing to the fabrication of a fully customizable casting kit. 3D printing enables facile preparation of hydrogel sample holders adaptable to any shape and number of specimen. As an example, we present the use of this device to produce a four-sample holder adapted to parallel live monitoring of multicellular tumor spheroid growth. To share our solution with the light sheet microscopy community, all files necessary to produce or customize sample holders are freely available online. (C) 2015 Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.