2018/05/30 by Maxim B. Prigozhin, Peter C. Maurer, Alexandra M. Courtis +18
Biochemistry, Genetics and Molecular Biology · Materials Science · Physics and Astronomy · #Advanced Electron Microscopy Techniques and Applications #Advanced Fluorescence Microscopy Techniques #Biomolecule #Electron #Electron and X-Ray Spectroscopy Techniques #Electron microscope #Excitation #Microscopy #Nanoparticle #Nanoscopic scale #Scanning electron microscope #cond-mat.mtrl-sci #physics.bio-ph #physics.optics
paper · pdf · doi:10.1038/s41565-019-0395-0
arxiv created 2018/05/30 · openalex created_date 2018/06/13 · openalex publication_date 2019/03/04 · arxiv updated 2019/05/22 · openalex updated_date 2026/08/05
Electron microscopy (EM) has been instrumental in our understanding of biological systems ranging from subcellular structures to complex organisms. Although EM reveals cellular morphology with nanoscale resolution, it does not provide information on the location of proteins within a cellular context. An EM-based bioimaging technology capable of localizing individual proteins and resolving protein-protein interactions with respect to cellular ultrastructure would provide important insights into the molecular biology of a cell. Here, we report on the development of luminescent nanoprobes potentially suitable for labeling biomolecules in a multicolor EM modality. In this approach, the labels are based on lanthanide-doped nanoparticles that emit light under electron excitation in a process known as cathodoluminescence (CL). Our results suggest that the optimization of nanoparticle composition, synthesis protocols and electron imaging conditions could enable high signal-to-noise localization of biomolecules with a sub-20-nm resolution, limited only by the nanoparticle size. In ensemble measurements, these luminescent labels exhibit narrow spectra of nine distinct colors that are characteristic of the corresponding rare-earth dopant type.