Mapping molecules in scanning far-field fluorescence nanoscopy

In fluorescence microscopy, the distribution of the emitting molecule number in space is usually obtained by dividing the measured fluorescence by that of a single emitter. However, the brightness of individual emitters may vary strongly in the sample or be inaccessible. Moreover, with increasing (super-) resolution, fewer molecules are found per pixel, making this approach unreliable. Here we map the distribution of molecules by exploiting the fact that a single molecule emits only a single photon at a time. Thus, by analysing the simultaneous arrival of multiple photons during confocal imaging, we can establish the number and local brightness of typically up to 20 molecules per confocal (diffraction sized) recording volume. Subsequent recording by stimulated emission depletion microscopy provides the distribution of the number of molecules with subdiffraction resolution. The method is applied to mapping the three-dimensional nanoscale organization of internalized transferrin receptors on human HEK293 cells.
Mapping the distribution of fluorescence molecules, rather than just their emission intensity, can improve super-resolution fluorescence microscopy. Here, the authors present a general solution for rendering the number of fluorescent molecules recorded by confocal or STED microscopy.