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Analytical Chemistry

Bright Lights For Imaging

Fluorinated dyes take a laser licking but keep on ticking

by Celia Henry Arnaud
April 5, 2010 | A version of this story appeared in Volume 88, Issue 14

Fluorescence imaging requires dye labels that are bright, long-lasting, and stable. To be used in nanoscale techniques like stimulated emission depletion (STED) microscopy, they also need to be able to withstand high laser intensities. Stefan W. Hell, Christian Eggeling, Vladimir N. Belov, and coworkers at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry, in Göttingen, Germany, have now developed a family of fluorinated rhodamine dyes that meet all these criteria (Chem. Eur. J., DOI: 10.1002/chem.200903272). The dyes have excitation maxima between 488 and 515 nm and emit around 520 nm with high quantum yields of nearly 1.0. The dyes are extremely photo­stable, especially at high laser intensities. The researchers used the dyes to label lipids, which they imaged with STED. They also showed that the dyes could pass through cell membranes. This could enable them to reach target proteins inside live cells, a capability they have not yet demonstrated.

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