Marine Biological Laboratory Images Cell Components in Full 3D | Optics.org

Combination of polarized and light-sheet methods reveals unexpected cellular coordination.

Fluorescence-based imaging methods have recorded many details of cell dynamics and behavior, but the full 3D orientation and position of fluorescently marked ensembles has remained difficult to determine.

Imaging the molecules in a dividing cell's "spindle," a protein structure that extends from one side of the cell to the other, has been a particular long-standing challenge. Traditional microscopy can image the spindle if it lies perpendicular to the viewing direction, but struggles if the plane is tilted.

A project at the Marine Biological Laboratory (MBL) affiliated with the has now developed a hybrid microscope that could reveal new information about the structures of proteins within cells.

As reported in the technique combines polarized fluorescence microscopy, good at measuring the orientation of molecules, with a dual-view light-sheet microscope (diSPIM, from selective-plane illumination microscope) which can image along the depth or the axial axis of a sample.

"We identified an unmet need for measurements that can be used to recover the three-dimensional orientation and position of fluorescent ensembles," noted the team in its paper. "A dual-view light-sheet system should provide an excellent platform for measuring their orientation."

Source: Marine Biological Laboratory Images Cell Components in Full 3D | Optics.org