Chenguang Wang, Masayasu Taki, Yoshikatsu Sato, Yasushi Tamura, Hideyuki Yaginuma, Yasushi Okada, Shigehiro Yamaguchi (2019) A photostable fluorescent marker for the superresolution live imaging of the dynamic structure of the mitochondrial cristae., Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America, Volume 116, Number 32, pp. 15817-15822
Published in 2019 Aug 6 (Electronic publication in July 23, 2019, midnight )
(Abstract) Stimulation emission depletion (STED) microscopy enables ultrastructural imaging of organelle dynamics with a high spatiotemporal resolution in living cells. For the visualization of the mitochondrial membrane dynamics in STED microscopy, rationally designed mitochondrial fluorescent markers with enhanced photostability are required. Herein, we report the development of a superphotostable fluorescent labeling reagent with long fluorescence lifetime, whose design is based on a structurally reinforced naphthophosphole fluorophore that is conjugated with an electron-donating diphenylamino group. The combination of long-lived fluorescence and superphotostable features of the fluorophore allowed us to selectively capture the ultrastructures of the mitochondrial cristae with a resolution of approximately 60 nm when depleted at 660 nm. This chemical tool provides morphological information of the cristae, which has so far only been observed in fixed cells using electron microscopy. Moreover, this method gives information about the dynamic ultrastructures such as the intermembrane fusion in different mitochondria as well as the intercristae mergence in a single mitochondrion during the apoptosis-like mitochondrial swelling process.(MeSH Terms)