Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Brief Communication
  • Published:

Immunofluorescence stimulated emission depletion microscopy

Abstract

We report immunofluorescence imaging with a spatial resolution well beyond the diffraction limit. An axial resolution of 50 nm, corresponding to 1/16 of the irradiation wavelength of 793 nm, is achieved by stimulated emission depletion through opposing lenses. We have demonstrated not only that an antibody-tagged label is stable enough to be recorded in this microscopy mode, but also that subdiffraction resolution can be obtained using a standard immunofluorescence preparation.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

Figure 1: Subdiffraction immunofluorescence imaging with STED-4Pi microscopy.

Similar content being viewed by others

References

  1. Hell, S.W. & Wichmann, J. Optics Lett. 19, 780–782 (1994).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Klar, T.A., Jakobs, S., Dyba, M., Egner, A. & Hell, S.W. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 97, 8206–8210 (2000).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  3. Dyba, M. & Hell, S.W. Phys. Rev. Lett. 88, 163901-1–163901-4 (2002).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Weber, K., Rathke, P.C. & Osborn, M. Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. USA 75, 1820–1824 (1978).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Klar, T.A., Engel, E. & Hell, S.W. Phys. Rev. E 64, 066611–066619 (2001).

    Article  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank Lars Kastrup for valuable discussions and the German Ministry for Research and Education (BMBF) for partial support.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

Authors

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Stefan W Hell.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing financial interests.

Supplementary information

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Cite this article

Dyba, M., Jakobs, S. & Hell, S. Immunofluorescence stimulated emission depletion microscopy. Nat Biotechnol 21, 1303–1304 (2003). https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt897

Download citation

  • Received:

  • Accepted:

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/nbt897

This article is cited by

Search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing