STED super-resolution microscopy of clinical paraffin-embedded human rectal cancer tissue.

ABSTRACT: Formalin fixed and paraffin-embedded human tissue resected during cancer surgery is indispensable for diagnostic and therapeutic purposes and represents a vast and largely unexploited resource for research. Optical microscopy of such specimen is curtailed by the diffraction-limited resolution of conventional optical microscopy. To overcome this limitation, we used STED super-resolution microscopy enabling optical resolution well below the diffraction barrier. We visualized nanoscale protein distributions in sections of well-annotated paraffin-embedded human rectal cancer tissue stored in a clinical repository. Using antisera against several mitochondrial proteins, STED microscopy revealed distinct sub-mitochondrial protein distributions, suggesting a high level of structural preservation.

SUBMITTER: Ilgen P 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4099123 | biostudies-literature | 2014

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature