Nanoscale imaging of bacterial infections by sphingolipid expansion microscopy.

ABSTRACT: Expansion microscopy (ExM) enables super-resolution imaging of proteins and nucleic acids on conventional microscopes. However, imaging of details of the organization of lipid bilayers by light microscopy remains challenging. We introduce an unnatural short-chain azide- and amino-modified sphingolipid ceramide, which upon incorporation into membranes can be labeled by click chemistry and linked into hydrogels, followed by 4× to 10× expansion. Confocal and structured illumination microscopy (SIM) enable imaging of sphingolipids and their interactions with proteins in the plasma membrane and membrane of intracellular organelles with a spatial resolution of 10-20 nm. As our functionalized sphingolipids accumulate efficiently in pathogens, we use sphingolipid ExM to investigate bacterial infec

SUBMITTER: Gotz R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7710728 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature