Abstract
Optical microscopy is a tool for observing objects, and features within objects, that are not visible to the unaided eye. In the life sciences, fluorescence microscopy has been widely adopted because it allows us to selectively observe molecules, organelles, and cells at multiple levels of organization. Fluorescence microscopy encompasses numerous techniques and applications that share a specialized technical language and concepts that can create barriers for researchers who are new to this area. Our goal is to meet the needs of researchers new to fluorescence microscopy, by introducing the essential concepts and mindset required to navigate and apply this powerful technology to the laboratory.
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Murphy DB, Davidson MW (2012) Phase contrast microscopy and darkfield microscopy. In: Fundamentals of light microscopy and electronic imaging. Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, pp 115–133
Murphy DB, Davidson MW (2012) Polarization microscopy. In: Fundamentals of light microscopy and electronic imaging. Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, pp 153–171
Murphy DB, Davidson MW (2012) Differential interference contrast microscopy and modulation contrast microscopy. In: Fundamentals of light microscopy and electronic imaging. Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, pp 173–197
Lichtman JW, Conchello JA (2005) Fluorescence microscopy. Nat Methods 2:910–919
Shashkova S, Leake MC (2017) Single-molecule fluorescence microscopy review: shedding new light on old problems. Biosci Rep 37:20170031
Harris DC, Bertolucci MD (1989) Symmetry and spectroscopy: an introduction to vibrational and electronic spectroscopy. Dover, New York
Mohr PJ, Newell DB, Taylor BN (2016) CODATA recommended values of the fundamental physical constants: 2014. Rev Mod Phys 88:035009
Lakowicz JR, Szmacinski H, Nowaczyk K et al (1992) Fluorescence lifetime imaging. Anal Biochem 202:316–330
Lakowicz JR (2006) Fluorescence anisotropy. In: Principles of fluorescence spectroscopy. Springer, New York, NY, pp 353–382
Dunn KW, Kamocka MM, McDonald JH (2011) A practical guide to evaluating colocalization in biological microscopy. Am J Physiol Cell Physiol 300:723–742
Zimmermann T (2005) Spectral imaging and linear unmixing in light microscopy. Adv Biochem Eng Biotechnol 95:245–265
Payne-Tobin Jost A, Waters JC (2019) Designing a rigorous microscopy experiment: validating methods and avoiding bias. J Cell Biol 218:1452–1466
Aaron JS, Taylor AB, Chew TL (2018) Image co-localization - co-occurrence versus correlation. J Cell Sci 131
Taniguchi M, Lindsey JS (2018) Database of Absorption and Fluorescence Spectra of >300 Common Compounds for use in PhotochemCAD. Photochem Photobiol 94:290–327
Diaspro A, Chirico G, Usai C et al (2006) Photobleaching. In: Handbook of biological confocal microscopy, 3rd edn. Springer, US, pp 690–702
Demchenko AP (2020) Photobleaching of organic fluorophores: quantitative characterization, mechanisms, protection. Methods Appl Fluoresc 8:022001
Shaw PJ (2006) Comparison of widefield/deconvolution and confocal microscopy for three-dimensional imaging. In: Handbook of biological confocal microscopy, 3rd edn. Springer, US, pp 453–467
Love D, Goodhand I (2019) Optimal LED filtering for fluorescence microscopy. Microsc Today 27:26–30
Jerome WG(J) (2017) Practical guide to choosing a microscope camera. Microsc Today 25:24–29
Keller HE (2003) Proper alignment of the microscope. Methods Cell Biol 2003:45–56
Inoué S, Spring KR (1997) Practical aspects of microscopy, in: video microscopy : the fundamentals. Plenum Press, New York
Jenkins FA, White HE (1976) Fundamentals of optics. McGraw-Hill, New York
Perrin MD, Soummer R, Elliott EM et al (2012) Simulating point spread functions for the James Webb Space Telescope with WebbPSF. In: Clampin MC, Fazio GG, MacEwen HA et al (eds) Space telescopes and instrumentation 2012: optical, infrared, and millimeter wave. SPIE, Amsterdam, p 84423D
Fritzky L, Lagunoff D (2013) Modern trends in imaging XII advanced methods in fluorescence microscopy. Anal Cell Pathol 36:5–17
Ross ST, Allen JR, Davidson MW (2014) Practical considerations of objective lenses for application in cell biology. In: Methods in cell biology. Academic Press Inc., pp 19–34
Mattheyses AL, Simon SM, Rappoport JZ (2010) Imaging with total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy for the cell biologist. J Cell Sci 123:3621–3628
Weik MH, Weik MH (2000) Nyquist theorem. In: Computer science and communications dictionary. Springer, US, pp 1127–1127
Murphy DB, Davidson MW (2012) Diffraction and spatial resolution. In: Fundamentals of light microscopy and electronic imaging. Wiley, Hoboken, NJ, pp 103–113
Laboratory for Optical and Computational Instrumentation (LOCI) U of W-M Spatial Calibration – ImageJ. https://imagej.net/SpatialCalibration
Kimpe T, Tuytschaever T (2007) Increasing the number of gray shades in medical display systems - how much is enough? J Digit Imaging 20:422–432
U.S. National Library of Medicine (2015) Color vision deficiency: MedlinePlus Genetics
Hasrod N, Rubin A (2016) Defects of colour vision: a review of congenital and acquired colour vision deficiencies. African Vis Eye Heal 75
Lee JY, Kitaoka M (2018) A beginner’s guide to rigor and reproducibility in fluorescence imaging experiments. Mol Biol Cell 29:1519–1525
Specht EA, Braselmann E, Palmer AE (2017) A critical and comparative review of fluorescent tools for live-cell imaging. Annu Rev Physiol 79:93–117
Schnitzbauer J, Strauss MT, Schlichthaerle T et al (2017) Super-resolution microscopy with DNA-PAINT. Nat Protoc 12:1198–1228
Allan V (1999) Protein localization by fluorescence microscopy: a practical approach. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Ivell R, Teerds K, Hoffman GE (2014) Proper application of antibodies for immunohistochemical detection: antibody crimes and how to prevent them. Endocrinology 155:676–687
Bordeaux J, Welsh A, Agarwal S et al (2010) Antibody validation. BioTechniques 48:197–209
Weller MG (2018) Ten basic rules of antibody validation. Anal Chem Insights 13:1177390118757462
Waters JC (2009) Accuracy and precision in quantitative fluorescence microscopy. J Cell Biol 185:1135–1148
Bankhead P (2014) Analyzing fluorescence microscopy images with ImageJ
Thorn K (2016) A quick guide to light microscopy in cell biology. Mol Biol Cell 27:219–222
Schindelin J, Arganda-Carreras I, Frise E et al (2012) Fiji: an open-source platform for biological-image analysis. Nat Methods 9:676–682
Michener WK (2015) Ten simple rules for creating a good data management plan. PLoS Comput Biol 11:e1004525
Schiermeier Q (2018) Data management made simple. Nature 555:403–405
Williams M, Bagwell J, Nahm Zozus M (2017) Data management plans, the missing perspective. J Biomed Inform 71:130–142
Redaktion. MIT Libraries Write a data management plan | Data management. https://libraries.mit.edu/data-management/plan/write/
Tools to assist you with the creation of a DMP. https://library.concordia.ca/research/data/dm-plans.php?guid=onlinetools
Donnelly M. Checklist for a Data Management Plan (v3.0, 17 March 2011). http://dmponline.dcc.ac.uk
Marqués G, Pengo T, Sanders MA (2020) Imaging methods are vastly underreported in biomedical research. elife 9:1–10
Nelson G, Boehm U, Bagley S et al QUAREP-LiMi: a community-driven initiative to establish guidelines for quality assessment and reproducibility for instruments and images in light microscopy. http://arxiv.org/abs/2101.09153
Polanyi M (2009) The tacit dimension. University of Chicago Press, Chicago
Acknowledgments
We thank Mr. Joel Glover (University of Calgary) for preparing the objective schematics shown in the figures and Dr. Craig Brideau (University of Calgary) for providing critical feedback on the manuscript. We also thank Mr. Devin Aggarwal from Dr. Kamala Patel’s laboratory at the University of Calgary, who kindly prepared the dermal endothelial samples illustrated in the figures.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Editor information
Editors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2022 The Author(s), under exclusive license to Springer Science+Business Media, LLC, part of Springer Nature
About this protocol
Cite this protocol
Swift, L.H., Colarusso, P. (2022). Fluorescence Microscopy: A Field Guide for Biologists. In: Heit, B. (eds) Fluorescent Microscopy. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2440. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2051-9_1
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-0716-2051-9_1
Published:
Publisher Name: Humana, New York, NY
Print ISBN: 978-1-0716-2050-2
Online ISBN: 978-1-0716-2051-9
eBook Packages: Springer Protocols