LITOS - Led Illumination Tool for Optogenetic Stimulation

For more information or if you need any help, please contact us at litosforscience[at]outlook.com.

The Led Illumination Tool for Optogenetic Stimulation (LITOS) can be used for the stimulation of cells containing an optogenetic system. A commercially available 32x64 RGB LED matrix is used to illuminate cells placed in various microplate formats (6 well up to 96 wells), petri dishes or cell culture flasks. The control unit for the LED matrix is a custom-built printed circuit board (PCB) containing a screen which shows relevant information during the illumination process.

During LITOS development, we deliberately focused on user-friendliness. LITOS can be ordered pre-built, thus no complicated assembly process is required. Individual stimulation patterns can be first created in a spreadsheet application, like Microsoft Excel, then they are loaded to LITOS over an easy-to-use interface, accessible as a website hosted on the device itself. Thus, no knowledge of a programming language is needed, and the device can even be operated by nontechnical oriented users.

LITOS, an easy-to-use system for optogenetic stimulation

Why another device for optogenetic stimulation

Optogenetic methods are powerful tools to assess complex signalling pathways with a high spatial-temporal resolution. However, there is a lack of adequate instrumentation to exploit these methods allowing high-throughput automated experiments. While available commercial devices are often too expensive, published solutions requires programming knowledge or have a complicated assembly process. We presents therefore LITOS, a new emerging tool to render optogenetic methods even accessible to labs with a small budget or non-technical user. Thanks to the easy-to-use–interface no knowledge of a programming language is needed, whereas it is still possible to program complex stimulation patterns. Despite being delivered pre-assembled, LITOS remains significantly cheaper than most of the published and commercially available solutions, costing only $ 150. By using a LED matrix as illumination source, even petri-dishes or cell culture flasks can be stimulated in addition to different formats of microtiter plates.

Features

• Easy-to-use graphical user interface to change stimulation patterns for optogenetic experiments. No programming knowledge is required.
• Stimulation patterns are provided as spreadsheet files (MS Excel, LibreOffice Calc)
• It comes pre-assembled. Neither a 3D printer, nor soldering are required before you can start your experiments.
• Cells can be placed in well plates (96, 48, 24, 12), petri dishes, or cell culture flasks.
• Very affordable, only about $150 per device.

Getting started

To learn more about LITOS, please read our paper, published 2022 in scientific reports, consult our github wiki or checkout the LITOS - First steps video.