Imaging the dynamics of embryonic development

Abstract

The explosion of progress in cell biology, biochemistry, and molecular biology has offered unprecedented knowledge of the components involved complex events such as embryonic development. This poses the challenge of integrating this knowledge of the building blocks into an understanding of the functioning system. Advanced imaging techniques offer important stepping‐stones between disparate approaches, permitting us to spy on the assembly process and to pose questions about cellular and molecular events in the most relevant setting of the intact system. Intravital imaging presents major tradeoffs between the rapidity of data collection and the limited photon budget. We are attempting to advance this tradeoff by constructing more efficient microscopes and creating labeling reagents with greater photostability and brightness such as second harmonic generating nanoparticles. These nanoparticles give sufficient signal for clear imaging down to the single molecule level, even in complex optical environments, and avoid the limitations of quantum dots (blinking and bleaching). Such new labels, combined with new imaging tools, are giving unique insights into the processes of embryonic development.