Recent progress on single-molecule localization microscopy

Abstract

Super-resolution imaging based on single-molecule localization has been developed for more than a decade. These techniques can break through diffraction limit of fluorescent microscopy and initially improve the resolution by an order of magnitude to ~20 nm, by introducing photoactivatable/photoswitching probes and centroid fitting method. As the demand of biological research, the localization precision of single-molecules was further improved by several state-of-the-art methods in the past several years. This review focuses on the latest developed techniques which have greatly improved the performance of single-molecule localization microscopy, from measurement principle to hardware design. These methods are essential for the study of nanostructures and biomacromolecule dynamics inside of cells.

Graphical abstract

Keywords

Single-molecule localization microscopy / Super-resolution imaging / Centroid fitting / Localization precision