Diamond-based ultra-fast freezing microscopy captures previously invisible life patterns

Fluorescence microscopes have a unique ability to observe cell processes, spanning four orders of magnitude

The Department of Systems Cell Biology at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund has developed the ultra-rapid freeze-freezing technology of cells in vivo under a microscope, and now it bypasses these basic problems

The nearly 100 trillion cells in our body are alive because they keep themselves in a permanently active state through continuous energy consumption

In order to observe how higher-scale tissues are produced from this continuous activity, biomolecular species can be selectively equipped with fluorescent probes

The Uncertainty Principle of Fluorescence Microscopy

The extent to which a fluorescence microscope can distinguish a specific structure or molecule basically depends on the amount of light collected from this structure

Similarly, the exposure time under a fluorescence microscope can be extended to increase the amount of detection light

This solution is really cool

Jan Huebinger developed a technique in the team of Philippe Bastiaens that can directly observe the molecular activity patterns of living cells at any point in time under a fluorescence microscope, with a time interval of milliseconds

This prevention is accomplished by cooling extremely quickly to a very cold temperature (-196°C), so that the molecular motion actually stops

Second, the speed of freezing must be faster than the ice formation process, because the formation of ice destroys cells

Researchers have mastered this technical challenge, and they have developed an ultra-fast cooling device integrated with the microscope, in which liquid nitrogen (-196°C) cooling is accelerated to the diamond under high pressure

Make invisible to visible

Ultra-rapid freezing prevention allows the use of high laser power, which is usually destructive, to analyze natural molecular patterns with a resolution of tens of nanometers, which would otherwise be invisible

This new technology has led to the discovery of a nano-scale co-organization of an oncoprotein and a tumor suppressor protein, thereby protecting the cells from showing malignant behavior