David Crossman, Yufeng Hou, and Christian Soeller
Department of Physiology, School of Medical Sciences
Correlative confocal and super resolution imaging of human cardiac myocyte
The visualisation shows a diseased human cardiac myocyte imaged with super resolution microscope for the protein junctophilin (in red) overlaid onto 3D confocal image stack of WGA labelling of the same cell (in blue). The blue tubular structures projecting into the centre of the cell are transverse tubules that are approximately 300 nm in diameter and are near the optical limit of the confocal microscope. However the super resolution data for junctophilin is substantially below this limit with a resolution of 30 nano-metres.
The image demonstrates how super-resolution and confocal microscopy can be combined to provide multi-scale imaging. Transverse tubules and junctophilin are key components in the calcium signalling that regulates cardiac contraction. Our research is characterising how changes in these structural components contribute to human heart failure.
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See David receiving the award!