Misleading images in cell biology
Wednesday, June 15, 2016 - 12:01
in Physics & Chemistry
Light cannot be used to image any structures smaller than half its wavelength - for a long time, this was considered to be the ultimate resolution limit in light microscopy. The development of superresolution microscopy, however, showed that there are certain loopholes to this rule. By imaging individual molecules at different points in time, their exact positions can eventually be combined to one clear picture. In 2014, the Nobel Prize in Chemistry was awarded for this idea. Since then, superresolution microscopy techniques, such as STORM and PALM, have become popular methods to study the organization of proteins in the cell membrane.