Protein-based biomineralization

Super-Resolution in Diatoms

Super-resolution microscopy techniques based on single-molecule localization microscopy (SMLM) have become increasingly popular over the last few years to image in vivo structures with a spatial resolution around 20nm. In particular co-localization of proteins and the resolution of structural organization of cytoskeletal elements have become possible and yielded new insights in numerous molecular mechanisms.  Protein localization in diatoms mostly relies on high-resolution electron-microscopy (EM) techniques or diffraction-limited fluorescence microscopy. SMLM offers now the possibility to shift fluorescence microscopy closer to the high-resolution EM regime while retaining in vivo like conditions. This allows us to also do correlative super resolution fluorescence microscopy with Transmission Electron Microscopy (sCLEM) to better understand the protein patterns on the cell structure. Furthermore, we do live cell imaging to understand the dynamics of frustule formation in-vivo.

Team members on the project: Adeeba