The Bell Group: Single Molecule and Super-Resolution Fluorescenc

Exciting News!

$Stretched DNA labelled using YOYO-1 and imaged on the home built super resolution setup with varying success. Ongoing work by Donna and Lukas has confirmed that sub-diffraction imaging of DNA is really, really, really hard but absolutely possible....$ $Stretched DNA labelled using YOYO-1 and imaged on the home built super resolution setup with varying success. Ongoing work by Donna and Lukas has confirmed that sub-diffraction imaging of DNA is really, really, really hard but absolutely possible....$ $Stretched DNA labelled using YOYO-1 and imaged on the home built super resolution setup with varying success. Ongoing work by Donna and Lukas has confirmed that sub-diffraction imaging of DNA is really, really, really hard but absolutely possible....$

Stretched DNA labelled using YOYO-1 and imaged on the home built super resolution setup with varying success. Ongoing work by Donna and Lukas has confirmed that sub-diffraction imaging of DNA is really, really, really hard but absolutely possible. Some great images have been captured. Sometimes, as in the middle, the DNA isn’t so well stretched or labelled. But other times, as in the top and bottom images, a magnitude-improved spatial resolution is demonstrated in the double strand cross-sections.

Progress on the DNA project with Lukas. These YOYO-1 stained double stranded DNA molecules are finally all stretching out nicely using our own variation on shear combing. Low power 488 nm excitation seems to be doing the trick well. Further optimization will hopefully allow better isolation of single molecules and improved localization precision.

Our hard worked-for first super resolution image of DNA stretched on glass. Not the greatest elongation but the binding/unbinding detection of YOYO fluorophores seems to be working well and some areas look very promising.

Further success on the Spheres project which is now rolling into a summer undergraduate project. Using similar protocols developed for the 100 nm spheres, Lukas has labelled a 20 nm batch with ATTO 647N dyes and grabbed some very nice single molecule images. EM once again confirms the heterogeneity of the spheres. Localization precision on the setup is exceeding expectations! [Scale bar (D) 100 nm.]

The Scope as it now stands. Ready to run three color simultaneous excitation and two channel detection. Simple as that.

It’s not every day you see detail like that! We are so pleased with how our actin staining protocols are coming along and ongoing tweaks to the scope are improving every image as we go.