STED nanoscopy with fluorescent quantum dots

Janina Hanne, Henning J. Falk, Frederik Görlitz, Patrick Hoyer, Johann Engelhardt, Steffen J. Sahl and Stefan W. Hell ()
Additional contact information
Janina Hanne: German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
Henning J. Falk: German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
Frederik Görlitz: German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
Patrick Hoyer: German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
Johann Engelhardt: German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)
Steffen J. Sahl: Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry
Stefan W. Hell: German Cancer Research Center (DKFZ)

Nature Communications, 2015, vol. 6, issue 1, 1-6

Abstract: Abstract The widely popular class of quantum-dot molecular labels could so far not be utilized as standard fluorescent probes in STED (stimulated emission depletion) nanoscopy. This is because broad quantum-dot excitation spectra extend deeply into the spectral bands used for STED, thus compromising the transient fluorescence silencing required for attaining super-resolution. Here we report the discovery that STED nanoscopy of several red-emitting commercially available quantum dots is in fact successfully realized by the increasingly popular 775 nm STED laser light. A resolution of presently ∼50 nm is demonstrated for single quantum dots, and sub-diffraction resolution is further shown for imaging of quantum-dot-labelled vimentin filaments in fibroblasts. The high quantum-dot photostability enables repeated STED recordings with >1,000 frames. In addition, we have evidence that the tendency of quantum-dot labels to blink is largely suppressed by combined action of excitation and STED beams. Quantum-dot STED significantly expands the realm of application of STED nanoscopy, and, given the high stability of these probes, holds promise for extended time-lapse imaging.

Date: 2015
References: Add references at CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.nature.com/articles/ncomms8127 Abstract (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nat:natcom:v:6:y:2015:i:1:d:10.1038_ncomms8127

Ordering information: This journal article can be ordered from
https://www.nature.com/ncomms/

DOI: 10.1038/ncomms8127

Access Statistics for this article

Nature Communications is currently edited by Nathalie Le Bot, Enda Bergin and Fiona Gillespie

More articles in Nature Communications from Nature
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Sonal Shukla () and Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing ().