Th new cellular imaging method has been developed by Vadim Backman and Hao Zhang. It is capable of producing high-quality pictures at the nanoscale. The technique is so precise that it can study individual biomolecules together with global patterns of gene expression. This latter part connects with the emerging science of macrogenomics, which explores the possibilities of gene editing as a treatment for different diseases.
The reason why the research is important is because the fight against cancer continues to pose many mysteries and to unpick these scientists need to understand what is occurring within a cell’s nucleus. To do so requires extremely powerful imaging techniques in order to visualize the genetic material.
The new technique, a type of optical nanoscale imaging, is described, slightly inelegantly, as “spectroscopic intrinsic-contrast photon-localization optical nanoscopy.” It is the first to produce a six-nanometer resolution. This is infinitesimally small, if you consider that one nanometer is only one billionth of a meter. This allows for the imaging of DNA, chromatin (a formed protein/DNA complex), and proteins in cells in their native states, and avoids the needs to add labels (which can physiologically alter structures).
In communication with Digital Journal, Professor Backman said: ““With our super-resolution imaging, we found that DNA and other biomolecules do fluoresce, but only for a very short time. Then they rest for a very long time, in a ‘dark’ state. The natural fluorescence was beautiful to see.” It is hoped the imaging method will allow biologists to see more clearly the workings of the chromatin folding code. This code regulates patterns of gene expression and, in turn, this should help to better understand cancer.
The new technique has recently been presented as part of a symposium titled “Optical Nanoscale Imaging: Unraveling the Chromatin Structure-Function Relationship.”
