Department of Genetics, Institute for Biology, Free University Berlin, Berlin, Germany.
Nat Neurosci. 2013 Jul;16(7):790-7. doi: 10.1038/nn.3403. Epub 2013 Jun 25.
Light microscopy can be applied in vivo and can sample large tissue volumes, features crucial for the study of single neurons and neural circuits. However, light microscopy per se is diffraction-limited in resolution, and the substructure of core signaling compartments of neuronal circuits--axons, presynaptic active zones, postsynaptic densities and dendritic spines-can be only insufficiently characterized by standard light microscopy. Recently, several forms of super-resolution light microscopy breaking the diffraction-imposed resolution limit have started to allow highly resolved, dynamic imaging in the cell-biologically highly relevant 10-100 nanometer range ('mesoscale'). New, sometimes surprising answers concerning how protein mobility and protein architectures shape neuronal communication have already emerged. Here we start by briefly introducing super-resolution microscopy techniques, before we describe their use in the analysis of neuronal compartments. We conclude with long-term prospects for super-resolution light microscopy in the molecular and cellular neurosciences.
光学显微镜可用于活体研究，并且能够对大量组织进行采样，这些特点对于研究单个神经元和神经回路至关重要。然而，光学显微镜本身在分辨率上存在衍射限制，神经元回路的核心信号区的亚结构——轴突、突触前活性区、突触后密度和树突棘——仅能用标准的光学显微镜进行不充分的表征。最近，几种形式的突破衍射分辨率限制的超分辨率光学显微镜开始允许在细胞生物学上高度相关的 10-100 纳米范围内进行高分辨率、动态成像（“介观尺度”）。关于蛋白质流动性和蛋白质结构如何塑造神经元通讯，已经出现了一些新的、有时令人惊讶的答案。在这里，我们首先简要介绍超分辨率显微镜技术，然后再描述它们在神经元区室分析中的应用。最后，我们对超分辨率光学显微镜在分子和细胞神经科学中的长期前景进行了总结。
