live cell imaging
In 1873, Ernst Abbe discovered that features closer than approximately 200 nm cannot be resolved by lens-based light microscopy.
Super-resolution imaging
In recent years, however, several new far-field super-resolution imaging techniques have broken this diffraction limit, producing, for example, video-rate movies of synaptic vesicles in living neurons with 62 nm spatial resolution.
Current research is focused on further improving spatial resolution in an effort to reach the goal of video-rate imaging of live cells with molecular (1-5 nm) resolution.
Websites
Live Cell Imaging at Perkin-Elmer
Labs
Goldman Laboratory at northwestern.edu
Open References
Imaging endocytic clathrin structures in living cells. Kirchhausen T. Trends Cell Biol. 2009 Nov;19(11):596-605. PMID: #19836955# [Free]
References
Fluorescent probes for super-resolution imaging in living cells. Fernández-Suárez M, Ting AY. Nat Rev Mol Cell Biol. 2008 Dec;9(12):929-43. PMID: #19002208#
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Duden R. Live cell imaging: the ’green revolution’ continues apace. Trends Cell Biol. 2002 Dec;12(12):548. PMID: #12495839#
Falk M. Genetic tags for labelling live cells: gap junctions and beyond. Trends Cell Biol. 2002 Sep;12(9):399-404. PMID: #12220850#
Mironov AA, Polishchuk RS, Luini A. Visualizing membrane traffic in vivo by combined video fluorescence and 3D electron microscopy. Trends Cell Biol. 2000 Aug;10(8):349-53. PMID: #10884688#