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Superresolution imaging of telomeres with continuous wave stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscope

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Abstract

The significant role of telomeres in cells has attracted much attention since they were discovered. Fluorescence imaging is an effective method to study subcellular structures like telomeres. However, the diffraction limit of traditional optical microscope hampers further investigation on them. Recent progress on superresolution fluorescence microscopy has broken this limit. In this work, we used stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscope to observe fluorescence-labeled telomeres in interphase cell nuclei. The results showed that the size of fluorescent puncta representing telomeres under the STED microscope was much smaller than that under the confocal microscope. Two adjacent telomeres were clearly separated via STED imaging, which could hardly be discriminated by confocal microscopy due to the diffraction limit. We conclude that STED microscope is a more powerful tool that enable us to obtain detailed information about telomeres.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Division of Physical Biology & Bioimaging Center, Shanghai Synchrotron Radiation Facility; CAS Key Laboratory of Interfacial Physics and Technology, Shanghai Institute of Applied Physics, Chinese Academy of Sciences, Shanghai, 201800, China

    Shaopeng Wang, Xiaoqing Cai, Shangguo Hou, Jiajun Li, Zhaoshuai Gao, Jiang Li, Lihua Wang & Chunhai Fan

  2. University of Chinese Academy of Sciences, Beijing, 100049, China

    Shaopeng Wang, Shangguo Hou & Zhaoshuai Gao

  3. School of Information Engineering, Nanchang University, Nanchang, 330031, China

    Suhui Deng

Authors
  1. Shaopeng Wang
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  2. Suhui Deng
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  3. Xiaoqing Cai
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  4. Shangguo Hou
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  5. Jiajun Li
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  6. Zhaoshuai Gao
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  7. Jiang Li
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  8. Lihua Wang
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  9. Chunhai Fan
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jiang Li.

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These authors contributed equally to this work.

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Wang, S., Deng, S., Cai, X. et al. Superresolution imaging of telomeres with continuous wave stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscope. Sci. China Chem. 59, 1519–1524 (2016). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-016-0020-9

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11426-016-0020-9

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