MIT’s Affordable Alternative to Super-Resolution Microscopes: A Breakthrough in Tissue Expansion

Nanoscale imaging has traditionally been an expensive affair, based on using expensive super-resolution microscopes that obtain a resolution of about 20 nanometers with conventional light microscopy. Hopefully that is about to change now, thanks to researchers at MIT.

Research scientists at MIT have invented a novel tissue expansion technique that permits low-cost nanoscale imaging. Scientists have succeeded in making a major step forward in the discovery of using specific gels to expand tissues by 20 times at one step. In this regard, standard light microscopes can be used to obtain resolutions of about 20 nanometers. Since minute cell structures and protein clusters become quite possible to observe with this discovery, nanoscale imaging, once the play domain of specialists, will become widely used as a tool in biology research.

How MIT’s Gel Expansion Technique is Opening Access to nanoscale imaging

After all, conventional microscopy demands highly detailed equipment for viewing the finer things that the cells contain. However, in this MIT method, tissues are stretched physically before imaging, and this now is possible to achieve without super-resolution microscopes that call for a fortune. The latest version of this technique has been able to expand 20x times the original size; here, researchers are able to observe microtubules, mitochondria, or even aggregates of proteins in the cellular structure.

Mechanism of Tissue Expansion: The 20-Fold Gel Method of MIT

The success of this process greatly depends on a special type of gel prepared by the mixture of N, N-dimethyl acrylamide and sodium acrylate. This new gel can achieve spontaneous mechanical crosslinking. The earlier forms required an extra molecule for stabilization and could expand only to ten times. The MIT team optimized the polymerization step to increase expansion up to 20 times.

To stabilize the gel during this step, the scientists further preprocessed the polymer solution by removing most of the oxygen. Flushing most of it out with nitrogen gas minimally interfered in the side reactions that could interfere with crosslinking, making the final result more sturdier. Upon this stage, proteins inside the tissue are then selectively broken, and water is added to swell the tissue so much that details on the cellular level can now be seen within a microscope.

This method of tissue expansion has one of the most important benefits in terms of accessibility. The chemicals used in the process are standard off-the-shelf chemicals, and the equipment needed, such as confocal microscopes and glove bags, is commonly found in biology labs. Thus, high-resolution imaging is democratised, allowing many research facilities to conduct nanoscale studies without it breaking the bank.

MIT researchers used a conventional light microscope to generate high-resolution images of synapses (left) and microtubules (right). In the image at left, presynaptic proteins are labeled in red, and postsynaptic proteins are labeled in blue. Each blue-red “sandwich” represents a synapse.

New Horizons in Cancer and Neurological Research with Extended Tissue Imaging

This method can revolutionize research in cancer as well as the area of neurology that moves further beyond routine cell imaging. This new method will make it easier for scientists to have a more defined view into how proteins are laid out within tumor cells or brain tissues, thus offering scientists a new vision into cellular mechanisms that lead to diseases. Understanding the development and progression of cancer can be enhanced with an improved capability for observing how proteins arrange themselves within tumor cells and can also help develop targeted therapies.

The MIT tissue expansion technique is about to revolutionize microscopy; for nanoscale imaging previously reserved for the most elite of labs, it now comes within reach. An affordable, accessible method promises speed research in myriad fields-from cancer biology and neurobiology-while tapping into nanoscale capabilities usually accessible only to the most advanced labs. Such detailed insight into protein structure in situ has the potential to unlock profound understandings of complex cellular processes and innovative therapeutic strategies. I think that when it is more widely implemented, it will drop the barriers to entry for many labs and open doors for further research in the life sciences.

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