Ultra-resolution microscopy technique offers new advances in imaging

Researchers have developed a new approach to microscopy that allows higher-resolution images to be captured than ever before.

The new technique, called discrete molecular imaging, represents an advance on Harvard University's existing DNA nanotechnology-powered super-resolution microscopy platform, introducing an integrated set of new imaging methods.

Their approach involves the use of DNA-PAINT technologies, which are based on the transient binding of two complementary short DNA strands, with one attached to the molecular target and the other to a fluorescent dye.

Using a refinement of this approach, it has become possible to distinguish between features only five nanometres from each other in a densely packed, single molecular structure. It represents the highest resolution achieved so far in optical microscopy.

Team leader Dr Peng Yin, professor of systems biology at Harvard Medical School and a  faculty member at the Wyss Institute for Biologically Inspired Engineering, said: "It opens up a way for researchers to study molecular conformations and heterogeneities in single multi-component complexes, and provides an easy, fast and multiplexed method for the structural analysis of many samples in parallel."