Directly observe molecular movements in a "living cell" at nano-resolution on a plasmon meta-surface

Using a plasmon metasurface composed of uniformly self-assembled gold nanoparticles, we have successfully observed the cluster formation process of the adhesion mottle protein paxillin in living cells in real time with nano-resolution.

The University has also issued a press release.

Abstract

A plasmonic metasurface composed of homogeneously self-assembled gold nanoparticles can provide high-contrast fluorescence images confined to the nanointerface. In this study, we successfully demonstrated real-time, high-spatiotemporal-resolution imaging of adhered Venus-paxillin-3T3 live cells under a widefield microscope, where not only a high axial resolution but also a high lateral resolution down to the theoretical limit were confirmed through nascent cluster formation of paxillin. The improved lateral resolution on the sheet could be interpreted as the characteristic of localized surface plasmon resonance (LSPR)-mediated enhanced fluorescence and the metasurface acting as a nanothickness plane light emitter. We also found minimized photobleaching, owing to the increase in the emission efficiency via plasmon-exciton coupling. This simple nanomaterial-based technique will be a powerful tool to enhance interfacial signals and improve the quality of live-cell images, not only under widefield microscopes but also in combination with various super-resolution microscope systems in the future.