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Towards a chemical anatomy: new tools to image biological molecules in cells and in tissues
Author(s) -
Salic Adrian
Publication year - 2010
Publication title -
the faseb journal
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.709
H-Index - 277
eISSN - 1530-6860
pISSN - 0892-6638
DOI - 10.1096/fasebj.24.1_supplement.65.1
Subject(s) - chemical reaction , chemical imaging , chemistry , molecule , nucleic acid , nanotechnology , biophysics , biology , biochemistry , materials science , computer science , artificial intelligence , organic chemistry , hyperspectral imaging
Microscopic imaging has revolutionized our understanding of the structure and function of cells and tissues. At its best, microscopy can detect cellular components with high sensitivity and spatial resolution. Additionally, live imaging allows dynamic cellular processes to be studied in a non‐invasive manner, with high temporal resolution. In the last decade, a small number of chemical reactions have been developed which occur with high efficiency and specificity under mild conditions, in aqueous media. These reactions are bio‐orthogonal, involving chemical groups not found in cells and inert toward naturally occurring chemical groups. These reactions are thus ideal for labeling and detecting molecules in vivo. One focus of our lab is to develop chemical technologies for metabolic labeling and direct imaging of biological molecules, based on these bio‐orthogonal chemical reactions. My talk will present our recent work on devising novel biosynthetic probes to image nucleic acids and lipids in cells and in tissues.