Live Cell STED Microscopy using Genetically Encoded Markers

Abstract

Far-field fluorescence microscopy is a tool of outstanding importance in the biological sciences, due to its non-invasiveness especially for the investigation of living cells, tissue and animals. Today also the major drawback in light microscopy, namely its limited resolution, has been overcome by utilizing photoswitching between different states of the fluorophore. STimulated Emission Depletion (STED) microscopy was the first farfield fluoresence nanoscopy approach to evolve, offering images with a resolution far beyond the diffraction barrier. However, until now STED microscopy was mostly confined to imaging fixed and therefore dead samples, because immunocytochemistry, the method of choice for fluorescence labeling for STED microscopy, requires in most cases the permeabilization and therefore fixation of the specimen. In this work, STED microscopy in living cells has been established. Two different labeling approaches have been applied: By using derivatives of green fluorescent protein (GFP), which is widely used in conventional live cell imaging, a resolution of 50 nm in the lateral and 150 nm in the axial direction within living cells is achieved. Alternatively, genetically encoded tagging proteins capable of binding modified organic dyes are employed. Structures as small as 40 nm can be discerned in living cells by this method. Both approaches also allow for watching structural changes on the nanoscale within the cell by taking time-lapse image series, as shown in various examples in this work. To monitor even faster processes on the nanoscale, STED fluorescence correlation spectroscopy (FCS) is applied in conjunction with these labeling approaches, elucidating nanoscopic details of the dynamics of membraneanchored proteins not observable with conventional confocal FCS. By utilizing these results, many ongoing fluorescence microscopy studies in living cells, which are currently performed with a diffraction-limited confocal microscope, can be carried out with a substantially improved spatial resolution in all directions by means of STED microscopy. Altogether, this paves the way for new insights into a bustling nanocosmos.