About this Research Topic

Background

Super-resolution microscopy (SRM) has become an indispensable tool for monitoring cytoskeleton dynamics, as well as the imaging, detection, and tracing of functional biomolecules in living cells. It overcomes the barrier of the diffraction limit and allows for the visualization of cellular structure down to the subnanometer level. Several types of SRM techniques are available, with a vast number of applications in interdisciplinary research fields. To date, many fluorescent probes such as fluorescent proteins, organic dyes, nanomaterials, quantum dots, and carbon dots have been employed for super-resolution microscopy. Each one has its own limitations, and as such, improving the efficiency of these probes to obtain a better-resolved structure is of great importance.

The performance of fluorescent probes in super-resolution microscopy is dependent on several important photo-physical parameters, such as fluorescent brightness and fluorophore switching between bright emissive (on) and dark (off) states. Organic dyes, with their smaller size, have excellent blinking properties, but are often dim and undergo rapid photobleaching. Photoactivable or photoswitchable fluorescent proteins suffer from poor localization precision due to their low photon counts. Nanomaterials, quantum dots, carbon dots, polymers dots, etc. have shown promise due to their high brightness and photostability, and yet their large size compared to organic dyes limits their range of potential applications in super-resolution microscopy. Furthermore, the toxic nature of several nanoprobes restricts their usefulness in living cells. As a result, further improvement is needed through the design and synthesis of novel fluorescent probes with improved performance for long-term real-time super resolution imaging.

This Research Topic aims to investigate new fluorescent probes with improved efficiency that can advance the field of super-resolution microscopy. Original research articles and perspectives are welcome from multidisciplinary research fields, with focus on topics including, but not limited to:

 • Novel fluorescent molecular probes or fluorescent proteins for super-resolution microscopy
 • Design and synthesis of smaller quantum dots, carbon dots, polymer dots, or nanomaterials
 • Fluorescent upconversion materials (e.g., nanoclusters, MOFs) for SRM
 • Any other nanostructured materials fulfilling the criteria for a probe for Super-resolution microscopy

Keywords: Super-resolution microscopy, photoswitching, fluorescent probe, nanomaterial, quantum dots

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