MRI: Acquisition of a Stimulated Emission Depletion (STED) Microscope for Nanoscopic Resolution of Biological Samples

MRI：获取受激发射损耗 (STED) 显微镜以实现生物样品的纳米级分辨率

• 批准号: 0722519
• 负责人: Shimon Weiss
• 金额: $ 110万
• 依托单位: University of California-Los Angeles
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 项目类别: Standard Grant
• 财政年份: 2007
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2007-08-01 至 2010-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://www.nsf.gov/awardsearch/showAward?AWD_ID=0722519&HistoricalAwards=false
• 关键词: MRI; Acquisition; Stimulated; Emission; Depletion

The Chemistry Department at the University of California-Los Angeles will acquire a stimulated emission depletion confocal laser scanning microscope (STED-CLSM) with this award from the Major Research Instrumentation (MRI) program. The requested microscope displays resolution down to 28 nm in the focal plane, a 10x improvement over conventional light microscopes. The instrument will be used to develop multi-color inorganic, stable, quantum rods as novel STED probes, decipher the structure of chromatin and its packaging into chromosomes in the cell, study cell signaling, viral and bacterial infection pathways, neural plasticity and many other important biological questions.STED microscopy provides an alternative to electron microscopy because it capitalizes on the well-established advantages of fluorescence microscopy (sensitivity, molecular specificity, genetically encoded probes, live cells, ease of operation). The STED concept relies on a purely physical phenomenon, stimulated emission, coupled with smart optics, to sharpen the confocal excitation spot, resulting in much more detailed, nanometer resolved images. Bridging the gap between electron and diffraction-limited light microscopy, a STED nanoscope should be a powerful tool for unraveling the relationship between structure and function in cell biology. Indeed, many outstanding problems lay in the nanometer scale, such as the organization of chromosomes, the assembly of large protein complexes and viral structures, organelle structures, as well as applications to non-biological nano-scale devices.

加州大学洛杉矶分校的化学系将获得一台受激发射耗尽共聚焦激光扫描显微镜（STED-CLSM），该显微镜来自主要研究仪器（MRI）计划。 所要求的显微镜在焦平面上显示分辨率低至28 nm，比传统光学显微镜提高了10倍。 该仪器将用于开发多色无机，稳定，量子棒作为新型STED探针，破译染色质的结构及其包装成细胞中的染色体，研究细胞信号传导，病毒和细菌感染途径，神经可塑性和许多其他重要的生物学问题。STED显微镜提供了一种替代电子显微镜，因为它充分利用了荧光显微镜的优势（灵敏度、分子特异性、基因编码探针、活细胞、操作简便）。STED概念依赖于一个纯粹的物理现象，受激发射，加上智能光学，以锐化共焦激发点，从而产生更详细的，纳米分辨率的图像。 STED纳米镜弥补了电子显微镜和衍射极限光学显微镜之间的差距，应该是解开细胞生物学中结构和功能之间关系的有力工具。 事实上，许多突出的问题在于纳米尺度，如染色体的组织，大型蛋白质复合物和病毒结构的组装，细胞器结构，以及非生物纳米尺度器件的应用。