Developmental Biology Institute of Marseilles, UMR 7288 CNRS, Aix-Marseille Université Marseille, France.
Front Plant Sci. 2014 Feb 18;5:18. doi: 10.3389/fpls.2014.00018. eCollection 2014.
The plasma membrane is a composite material, which forms a semi-permeable barrier and an interface for communication between the intracellular and extracellular environments. While the existence of membrane microdomains with nanoscale organization has been proved by the application of numerous biochemical and physical methods, direct observation of these heterogeneities using optical microscopy has remained challenging for decades, partly due to the optical diffraction limit, which restricts the resolution to ~200 nm. During the past years, new optical methods which circumvent this fundamental limit have emerged. Not only do these techniques allow direct visualization, but also quantitative characterization of nanoscopic structures. We discuss how these emerging optical methods have refined our knowledge of membrane microdomains and how they may shed light on the basic principles of the mesoscopic membrane organization.
细胞膜是一种复合材料，它形成半透性屏障和细胞内外环境之间的通信界面。虽然应用许多生化和物理方法已经证明了具有纳米级组织的膜微区的存在，但使用光学显微镜直接观察这些非均相性一直具有挑战性，部分原因是由于光学衍射极限限制了分辨率到约 200nm。在过去的几年中，出现了新的规避这一基本限制的光学方法。这些技术不仅允许对纳米级结构进行直接可视化，还可以进行定量表征。我们讨论了这些新兴的光学方法如何改进我们对膜微区的认识，以及它们如何阐明介观膜组织的基本原理。
