27 articles
4D imaging
4D imaging repeatedly records 3D image volumes of living specimens over time, visualizing dynamic processes in cells and embryos; it was introduced for developmental biology in 1996.
Automated microscopy
Automated microscopy is a laboratory method in which robotic microscopes acquire images of cells without an operator, converting them into quantitative data for high-content screening.
Bessel beam plane illumination
Bessel beam plane illumination is a fluorescence microscopy technique in which a scanned, non-diffracting Bessel beam forms a thin light sheet, introduced for live-cell imaging by Eric Betzig's group in 2011.
Cell tracking
Cell tracking is a microscopy and image-analysis method that follows individual cells across time-lapse frames, producing trajectories, lineage trees, and measurements of motility and division.
Colocalization (microscopy)
Colocalization is a fluorescence microscopy image-analysis method that quantifies whether two labeled biomolecules occupy overlapping subcellular regions, using pixel-intensity correlation and overlap coefficients from dual-channel images.
Expansion microscopy
Expansion microscopy (ExM) is a sample preparation method that embeds fixed cells and tissues in a swellable polymer gel, enlarging them so nanoscale structures become resolvable on conventional microscopes. It was first published in 2015.
Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy
Fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy (FLIM) maps the decay time of fluorescence from every pixel of labeled cells or tissue, enabling FRET measurements, metabolic imaging, and clinical tissue sensing.
Fluorescence Microscopy
Fluorescence microscopy images fluorophore-labeled specimens by detecting longer-wavelength emitted light; spans widefield, confocal, TIRF, two-photon, light sheet, and super-resolution modalities with distinct resolution, depth, and speed trade-offs.
Fluorescence polarization microscopy
Fluorescence polarization microscopy is a fluorescence technique that measures emission polarization pixel by pixel to map the orientation, clustering, and rotational mobility of labeled biomolecules in cells.
Fluorescence-based particle tracking
Fluorescence-based particle tracking, usually called fluorescent single-particle tracking (SPT), is a microscopy method that follows individual labeled molecules in living cells, yielding trajectories that reveal diffusion coefficients and molecular interactions.
FRAP (fluorescence microscopy)
FRAP, or fluorescence recovery after photobleaching, is a fluorescence microscopy technique that bleaches a small region of labeled molecules in a living cell and measures fluorescence recovery to quantify diffusion and binding.
Green fluorescence imaging
Green fluorescence imaging is an optical technique using green fluorophores like GFP and fluorescein to report the location and dynamics of labeled biomolecules in living cells.
Image correlation spectroscopy
Image correlation spectroscopy (ICS) is a fluorescence microscopy analysis method, introduced in 1993, that measures the density, aggregation state, and transport of fluorescently labeled molecules in cells.
Lattice light-sheet microscopy
Lattice light-sheet microscopy is a fluorescence microscopy method that images living cells in 3D using an ultrathin light sheet, with far less phototoxicity than confocal microscopy.
Live cell imaging
Live cell imaging is a microscopy method that records time-lapse images of living cells over minutes to days, following individual cells through division, migration, signaling, and drug response.
Live-cell microscopy
Live-cell microscopy is the time-resolved observation of living, unfixed cells under a microscope, following processes like cell division and migration while keeping light damage low.
Nonlinear optical microscopy
Nonlinear optical microscopy is a family of imaging techniques that use nonlinear light–matter interactions, such as multiphoton absorption and harmonic generation, to image live tissue.
Photoactivated localization microscopy
Photoactivated localization microscopy (PALM) is a single-molecule fluorescence microscopy method introduced in 2006 that images cellular structures at about 20–30 nm resolution, ten times finer than conventional light microscopy.
RESOLFT microscopy
RESOLFT (reversible saturable optical fluorescence transitions) is a super-resolution fluorescence microscopy technique, introduced in 2005, that images living cells beyond the diffraction limit at intensities far below STED.
Second-harmonic generation microscopy
Second-harmonic generation microscopy, also called harmonic generation microscopy, is a label-free nonlinear optical imaging method that visualizes fibrillar collagen and myosin in intact tissue without stains or dyes.
Spinning disk confocal microscopy
Spinning disk confocal microscopy (SDCM) is a fluorescence technique that forms optical sections through a rotating disk of pinholes, enabling fast, low-phototoxicity 3D imaging of living cells.
STED nanoscopy
STED nanoscopy is a super-resolution fluorescence microscopy method that switches off fluorophores around the focus with a donut-shaped laser beam, reaching resolutions of tens of nanometers.
Super-resolution radial fluctuations
Super-resolution radial fluctuations (SRRF) is a fluorescence microscopy image-processing method, introduced in 2016, that reconstructs super-resolution images from fluorophore fluctuations at low excitation power, without structured illumination or single-molecule isolation.
Time-lapse microscopy
Time-lapse microscopy is a technique that images a specimen repeatedly over time, producing single-cell records of division, migration, and gene expression that static snapshots cannot resolve.
Video microscopy
Video microscopy is a light microscopy technique that records living cells as video over time under growth conditions, capturing dynamics such as migration, division, and vesicle transport.
Wide-field microscopy
Wide-field microscopy is an optical imaging technique that illuminates the whole specimen at once and captures the image with a camera, the workhorse of cell biology imaging.
Widefield microscopy
Widefield microscopy is an optical method that illuminates the entire specimen field at once, capturing fluorescence images in a single exposure; its main weakness is out-of-focus blur in thick samples.