Multi-color 3D MINFLUX nanoscopy visualizes the cellular distribution and relative position of proteins that are only a few nanometers apart. The picture shows a mitochondrion from a human skin cell in which two proteins in the inner mitochondrial membrane are stained: A subunit of the MICOS complex (Mic60), is colored in orange, a subunit of the mitochondrial ATP synthase (ATPB), is colored in blue. The scale bar has a length of 500 nanometers.© Till Stephan & Jasmin Pape / Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry

Dissecting protein assemblies

Posted on   11.08.2020

In an initial application of the powerful MINFLUX nanoscopy technique to cell biology, researchers led by Stefan Hell and Stefan Jakobs have now optically dissected the distribution of individual proteins in a ~ 20-nanometer-sized protein cluster within a cellular organelle in 3D using multiple colors. MINFLUX nanoscopy thus proves to be an extremely powerful tool to find out if and how proteins group inside the cell, at the length scale of the proteins themselves.

Please find the full MPI-BPC press release here.