March 23 2018

Seminar
Room: Sala Riunioni -  Hour: 12.00
Università Cattolica, Via Musei 41, Brescia (Italy)

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Introduce:
Gabriele FERRINI
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore

Speaker:
Eduard FRON
Department of Chemistry Katholieke Universiteit Leuven

Abstract:

Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy has become a method of choice for imaging biological structures and their nanoscale dynamic in live cells that are unresolvable by traditional diffraction-limited light microscopy. Many super-resolution techniques, including PALM, SOFI, STED, utilize genetically encoded photocontrollable fluorescent proteins. Genetically encoded fluorescent proteins (FP) have become an indispensable tool in various fields of life science as a controlled method to fluorescently label a target protein in a living cell. An important feature of these proteins is that the optical properties can be controlled by light of specific wavelengths. In this presentation I will discuss:

a) the three major groups of super-resolution fluorescence microscopy techniques: those based on highly localized fluorescence emission volumes; those based on structured illumination; and those based on single-molecule localizations;

b) the biochemical and photophysical properties of photocontrollable fluorescent proteins that are relevant to their use in super-resolution microscopy; I then provide examples of recently developed photoactivatable, photoswitchable and reversibly photoswitchable fluorescent proteins.