Microscopes are the most commonly used research tools in biological research. Researchers generally use electron microscopes to study subcellular structures or optical microscopes to study whole living cells. However, the resolution of traditional microscopes is limited. When the distance between two or more fluorophores is within a few hundred nanometers, their images will become blurred. Biological structures such as protein complexes, Golgi apparatus and cytoskeleton are all lower than the diffraction limit of traditional microscopes, so traditional microscopes cannot directly observe cell structures and biomolecules' interaction. However, with the emergence of super-resolution microscopes, this problem has been solved, which allows researchers to use super-resolution microscopes to directly observe cell structures and biomolecules' interaction.

Figure 1. Pathways to consider when choosing a super-resolution method (Galbraith C G, et al. 2011).

Principles of Super-Resolution Imaging Technology

Super-resolution microscopy breaks the limitation of resolution and maintains the minimally invasive nature of optical microscopy. It can observe fine structures and molecular activities in the resolution range of 10 - 100 nm. The imaging resolution of super-resolution microscopy technology is 20 times that of optical microscopy. Its working principle is to effectively reduce the point spread function or ensure that the fluorophores of the sample are not too close to prevent blur. Stimulated emission depletion microscopy (STED), structured illumination microscopy (SIM), stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM), and two-photon excitation microscopy (TPE) are the most commonly used super-resolution microscopy techniques. These technologies can produce super-resolution images in the low-nanometer range, and can visualize the interactions between molecules in cells and the fine cell structure.

CD BioSciences is a biotechnology company, which has been committed to the development of imaging technology for many years. We can use super-resolution imaging technology to study various cell activities in cell structure, such as the interaction of DNA/RNA and protein, DNA replication and transcription, vesicle movement and bacterial transcription, etc. If you have any needs, please feel free to contact us.

Application of Super-Resolution Imaging Technology

Advantages of Super-Resolution Imaging Technology

• High resolution, maintain the advantages of optical microscopes
• Provide protein structure analysis at the organelle level
• Real-time tracking of single-molecule movement in cells
• Understand the single-molecule mechanism of cell physiology

1. Oddone A, Vilanova I V, Tam J, et al. Super‐resolution imaging with stochastic single‐molecule localization: concepts, technical developments, and biological applications[J]. Microscopy research and technique, 2014, 77(7): 502-509.
2. Galbraith C G, Galbraith J A. Super-resolution microscopy at a glance[J]. Journal of cell science, 2011, 124(10): 1607-1611.

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Please note: Our services can only be used for research purposes. Do not use in diagnostic or therapeutic procedures!