Label-free nanoscale mapping of intracellular organelle chemistry.

ABSTRACT: The ability to image cell chemistry at the nanoscale is key for understanding cell biology, but many optical microscopies are restricted by the ~(200-250)nm diffraction limit. Electron microscopy and super-resolution fluorescence techniques beat this limit, but rely on staining and specialised labelling to generate image contrast. It is challenging, therefore, to obtain information about the functional chemistry of intracellular components. Here we demonstrate a technique for intracellular label-free chemical mapping with nanoscale (~30 nm) resolution. We use a probe-based optical microscope illuminated with a mid-infrared laser whose wavelengths excite vibrational modes of functional groups occurring within biological molecules. As a demonstration, we chemically map intracellular structur

SUBMITTER: Greaves GE 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10232547 | biostudies-literature | 2023 May

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature