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Structured illumination microscopy of a living cell

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Abstract

Due to diffraction, the resolution of imaging emitted light in a fluorescence microscope is limited to about 200 nm in the lateral direction. Resolution improvement by a factor of two can be achieved using structured illumination, where a fine grating is projected onto the sample, and the final image is reconstructed from a set of images taken at different grating positions. Here we demonstrate that with the help of a spatial light modulator, this technique can be used for imaging slowly moving structures in living cells.

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Acknowledgments

This work was funded by the Medical Research Council, Carl Zeiss MicroImaging GmbH and the International Agency for Atomic Energy.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Randall Division of Cell and Molecular Biophysics, King’s College London, New Hunt’s House, Guy’s Campus, London, SE1 1UL, UK

    Liisa M. Hirvonen, Kai Wicker & Rainer Heintzmann

  2. Faculty of Mathematics and Physics, Charles University, Ke Karlovu 3, 121 16 , Praha 2, Czech Republic

    Ondrej Mandula

Authors
  1. Liisa M. Hirvonen
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  2. Kai Wicker
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  3. Ondrej Mandula
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  4. Rainer Heintzmann
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Rainer Heintzmann.

Additional information

This article has been submitted as a contribution to the Festschrift entitled “Uncovering cellular sub-structures by light microscopy” in honour of Professor Cremer’s 65th birthday.

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Hirvonen, L.M., Wicker, K., Mandula, O. et al. Structured illumination microscopy of a living cell. Eur Biophys J 38, 807–812 (2009). https://doi.org/10.1007/s00249-009-0501-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s00249-009-0501-6

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