Question

1. Describe one advantage of super-resolution microscopy over conventional light microscopy.

2. Describe one advantage of super-resolution microscopy over electron microscopy.

Answer 1

Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy techniques allow the observation of many biological structures not resolvable in conventional fluorescence microscopy. New advances in these techniques now give them the ability to image three-dimensional (3D) structures, measure interactions by multicolor colocalization, and record dynamic processes in living cells at the nanometer scale. It is anticipated that super-resolution fluorescence microscopy will become a widely used tool for cell and tissue imaging to provide previously unobserved details of biological structures and processes.

Compared to other imaging techniques such as electron microscopy (EM), however, conventional fluorescence microscopy is limited by relatively low spatial resolution because of the diffraction of light. This diffraction limit, about 200