Realizing the Biological and Biomedical Potential of Nanoscale Imaging Using a Pipette Probe

Authors and Disclosures

Andrew I Shevchuk¹, Pavel Novak^1,2, Yasufumi Takahashi¹, Richard Clarke³, Michele Miragoli², Babak Babakinejad¹, Julia Gorelik², Yuri E Korchev¹ & David Klenerman<sup>†3

1</sup>Division of Medicine, Imperial College London, London W12 0NN, UK
²National Heart & Lung Institute, Department of Cardiac Medicine, Imperial College London, London SW3 6LY, UK
³Department of Chemistry, Cambridge University, Cambridge CB2 1EW, UK

^†Author for correspondence
Tel.: +44 1223 336 481 Fax: +44 1223 336 362 dk10012@cam.ac.uk

Sidebar

Executive Summary

• Ion conductance microscopy can scan complex cellular structures and tissues with nanoscale resolution.

• A suite of different imaging modalities can be performed with the same instrument in order to image cell function at the same time. This includes fluorescence, mapping chemical species and the controlled delivery of molecules and will continue to be extended by fuctionalization of the nanopipette probe.

• Experiments on the localization of β adrenergic receptors with cAMP signaling on heart cells illustrate how these methods can provide new insights into how normal cells are organized and how this changes during disease.

• Single molecule physiology should be possible in the next few years, allowing the function of single receptors to be studied in the membrane of live cells.