Revealing Nanoscale Morphology of the Primary Cilium Using Super-Resolution Fluorescence Microscopy.

ABSTRACT: Super-resolution (SR) microscopy has been used to observe structural details beyond the diffraction limit of ∼250 nm in a variety of biological and materials systems. By combining this imaging technique with both computer-vision algorithms and topological methods, we reveal and quantify the nanoscale morphology of the primary cilium, a tiny tubular cellular structure (∼2-6 μm long and 200-300 nm in diameter). The cilium in mammalian cells protrudes out of the plasma membrane and is important in many signaling processes related to cellular differentiation and disease. After tagging individual ciliary transmembrane proteins, specifically Smoothened, with single fluorescent labels in fixed cells, we use three-dimensional (3D) single-molecule SR microscopy to determine their positions with a p

SUBMITTER: Yoon J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6349968 | biostudies-literature | 2019 Jan

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature