Imaging technique allows study of cell membrane and its defenses

Daily Mail : A super-resolution microscopy technique developed at Sandia National Laboratories is allowing researchers to study a cell membrane with extraordinary spatial resolution. The technique builds on super-resolution capabilities developed in recent years, but it goes another step by adding dual-color capabilities to the relatively new stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy, or STORM. Sandia researchers Jesse Aaron, Jeri Timlin, and Bryan Carson have been using the new technique to discover why a cell can defend against some invaders, such as Escherichia coli, while failing against others, such as the bacteria that cause bubonic plague. They have been able to view the clustering of receptor proteinstasked with recognizing intruderson the surface of immune cells when those proteins are confronted with lipopolysaccharides derived from E. coli; LPS derived from bacteria that cause the plague do not cause the same effects. Such studies could open doors to new diagnostic, prevention, and treatment methods. For more details, see Sandia’s press release .