Expansion stimulated emission depletion microscopy (ExSTED)

Abstract

Abstract Stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy is routinely used to resolve the ultra-structure of cells with a ∼10-fold higher resolution compared to diffraction limited imaging. While STED microscopy is based on preparing the excited state of fluorescent probes with light, the recently developed expansion microscopy (ExM) provides sub-diffraction resolution by physically enlarging the sample before microscopy. Expansion of fixed cells by crosslinking and swelling of hydrogels easily enlarges the sample ∼4-fold and hence increases the effective optical resolution by this factor. To overcome the current limits of these complimentary approaches, we here combined ExM with STED (ExSTED) and demonstrate an increase in resolution of up to 30-fold compared to conventional microscopy (<10 nm lateral and ∼50 nm isotropic). While the increase in resolution is straight forward, we found that high fidelity labelling via multi-epitopes is required to obtain emitter densities that allow to resolve ultra-structural details with ExSTED. Our work provides a robust template for super resolution microscopy of entire cells in the ten nanometer range.

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