scholarly journals Continuous rearrangement of the postsynaptic gephyrin scaffolding domain: a super-resolution quantified and energetic approach

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Pamela C. Rodriguez ◽  
Leandro G. Almeida ◽  
Antoine Triller

AbstractSynaptic function and plasticity requires a delicate balance between overall structural stability and the continuous rearrangement of the components that make up the presynaptic active zone and the postsynaptic density (PSD). Photoactivated localization microscopy (PALM) has provided a detailed view of the nanoscopic structure and organization of some of these synaptic elements. Still lacking, are tools to address the morphing and stability of such complexes at super-resolution. We describe an approach to quantify morphological changes and energetic states of multimolecular assemblies over time. With this method, we studied the scaffold protein gephyrin, which forms postsynaptic clusters that play a key role in the stabilization of receptors at inhibitory synapses. Postsynaptic gephyrin clusters exhibit an internal microstructure composed of nanodomains. We found, that within the PSD, gephyrin molecules continuously undergo spatial reorganization. This dynamic behavior depends on neuronal activity and cytoskeleton integrity. The proposed approach also allowed access to the effective energy responsible for the tenacity of the PSD despite molecular instability.Significant statementSuper-resolution microscopy has become an important tool for the study of biological systems, allowing detailed, nano-scale structural reconstruction, single molecule tracking, particle counting, and interaction studies. However, quantification tools that take full advantage of the information provided by this technology are still lacking. We describe a novel quantification method to obtain information related to the size, directionality, dynamics, and stability of clustered structures from super-resolution microscopy. With this method, we studied the stability of gephyrin clusters, the main inhibitory scaffold protein. We found that gephyrin molecules continuously undergo reorganization based on neuronal activity and changes in the cytoskeleton.

2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jagadish Sankaran ◽  
Harikrushnan Balasubramanian ◽  
Wai Hoh Tang ◽  
Xue Wen Ng ◽  
Adrian Röllin ◽  
...  

AbstractSuper-resolution microscopy and single molecule fluorescence spectroscopy require mutually exclusive experimental strategies optimizing either temporal or spatial resolution. To achieve both, we implement a GPU-supported, camera-based measurement strategy that highly resolves spatial structures (~100 nm), temporal dynamics (~2 ms), and molecular brightness from the exact same data set. Simultaneous super-resolution of spatial and temporal details leads to an improved precision in estimating the diffusion coefficient of the actin binding polypeptide Lifeact and corrects structural artefacts. Multi-parametric analysis of epidermal growth factor receptor (EGFR) and Lifeact suggests that the domain partitioning of EGFR is primarily determined by EGFR-membrane interactions, possibly sub-resolution clustering and inter-EGFR interactions but is largely independent of EGFR-actin interactions. These results demonstrate that pixel-wise cross-correlation of parameters obtained from different techniques on the same data set enables robust physicochemical parameter estimation and provides biological knowledge that cannot be obtained from sequential measurements.


2021 ◽  
Vol 22 (4) ◽  
pp. 1903
Author(s):  
Ivona Kubalová ◽  
Alžběta Němečková ◽  
Klaus Weisshart ◽  
Eva Hřibová ◽  
Veit Schubert

The importance of fluorescence light microscopy for understanding cellular and sub-cellular structures and functions is undeniable. However, the resolution is limited by light diffraction (~200–250 nm laterally, ~500–700 nm axially). Meanwhile, super-resolution microscopy, such as structured illumination microscopy (SIM), is being applied more and more to overcome this restriction. Instead, super-resolution by stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy achieving a resolution of ~50 nm laterally and ~130 nm axially has not yet frequently been applied in plant cell research due to the required specific sample preparation and stable dye staining. Single-molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) including photoactivated localization microscopy (PALM) has not yet been widely used, although this nanoscopic technique allows even the detection of single molecules. In this study, we compared protein imaging within metaphase chromosomes of barley via conventional wide-field and confocal microscopy, and the sub-diffraction methods SIM, STED, and SMLM. The chromosomes were labeled by DAPI (4′,6-diamidino-2-phenylindol), a DNA-specific dye, and with antibodies against topoisomerase IIα (Topo II), a protein important for correct chromatin condensation. Compared to the diffraction-limited methods, the combination of the three different super-resolution imaging techniques delivered tremendous additional insights into the plant chromosome architecture through the achieved increased resolution.


2021 ◽  
pp. 2101099
Author(s):  
Izabela Kamińska ◽  
Johann Bohlen ◽  
Renukka Yaadav ◽  
Patrick Schüler ◽  
Mario Raab ◽  
...  

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Anders K Engdahl ◽  
Oleg Grauberger ◽  
Mark Schüttpelz ◽  
Thomas Huser

Photoinduced off-switching of organic fluorophores is routinely used in super-resolution microscopy to separate and localize single fluorescent molecules, but the method typically relies on the use of complex imaging buffers. The most common buffers use primary thiols to reversibly reduce excited fluorophores to a non-fluorescent dark state, but these thiols have a limited shelf life and additionally require high illumination intensities in order to efficiently switch the emission of fluorophores. Recently a high-index, thiol-containing imaging buffer emerged which used sodium sulfite as an oxygen scavenger, but the switching properties of sulfite was not reported on. Here, we show that sodium sulfite in common buffer solutions reacts with fluorescent dyes, such as Alexa Fluor 647 and Alexa Fluor 488 under low to medium intensity illumination to form a semi-stable dark state. The duration of this dark state can be tuned by adding glycerol to the buffer. This simplifies the realization of different super-resolution microscopy modalities such as direct Stochastic Reconstruction Microscopy (dSTORM) and Super-resolution Optical Fluctuation Microscopy (SOFI). We characterize sulfite as a switching agent and compare it to the two most common switching agents by imaging cytoskeleton structures such as microtubules and the actin cytoskeleton in human osteosarcoma cells.


2021 ◽  
Vol 33 (42) ◽  
pp. 2105719
Author(s):  
Izabela Kamińska ◽  
Johann Bohlen ◽  
Renukka Yaadav ◽  
Patrick Schüler ◽  
Mario Raab ◽  
...  

Cell Research ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 27 (5) ◽  
pp. 713-716 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fan Xu ◽  
Mingshu Zhang ◽  
Wenting He ◽  
Renmin Han ◽  
Fudong Xue ◽  
...  

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