2010/03/01 by George H. Patterson, Michael W. Davidson, Suliana Manley +1 · 2 citations
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Engineering · #Advanced Fluorescence Microscopy Techniques #Near-Field Optical Microscopy #Integrated Circuits and Semiconductor Failure Analysis
paper · doi:10.1146/annurev.physchem.012809.103444
openalex publication_date 2010/03/01 · openalex created_date 2025/10/10 · openalex updated_date 2026/07/22
Superresolution imaging is a rapidly emerging new field of microscopy that dramatically improves the spatial resolution of light microscopy by over an order of magnitude (approximately 10-20-nm resolution), allowing biological processes to be described at the molecular scale. Here, we discuss a form of superresolution microscopy based on the controlled activation and sampling of sparse subsets of photoconvertible fluorescent molecules. In this single-molecule-based imaging approach, a wide variety of probes have proved valuable, ranging from genetically encodable photoactivatable fluorescent proteins to photoswitchable cyanine dyes. These have been used in diverse applications of superresolution imaging: from three-dimensional, multicolor molecule localization to tracking of nanometric structures and molecules in living cells. Single-molecule-based superresolution imaging thus offers exciting possibilities for obtaining molecular-scale information on biological events occurring at variable timescales.