Breaking the optical diffraction limit of far-field fluorescence microscopy to achieve superresolution (SR) nanoscopy has refreshed the portrait of molecular organizations and interactions in biological systems,1
Advanced Photonics, Volume. 5, Issue 6, 066001(2023)
Photoswitchable vibrational nanoscopy with sub-100-nm optical resolution
Stimulated Raman scattering (SRS) microscopy has shown superior chemical resolution due to the much narrower vibrational spectral bandwidth than its fluorescence counterpart. However, breaking the diffraction-limited spatial resolution of SRS imaging is much more challenging because of the intrinsically weak scattering cross section and inert/stable nature of molecular bond vibrations. We report superresolution SRS (SR-SRS) nanoscopy based on reversible-switchable vibrational photochromic probes integrated with point spread function engineering strategy. By introducing a Gaussian-shaped ultraviolet excitation beam and a donut-shaped visible depletion beam in addition to the pump and Stokes beams, SR-SRS could reach sub-100 nm resolution on photoswitchable nanoparticles (NPs). Furthermore, NP-treated live cell imaging was demonstrated with resolution improvement by a factor of ∼4. Our proof-of-principle work provides the potential for SR vibrational imaging to assist research on complex biological systems.
1 Introduction
Breaking the optical diffraction limit of far-field fluorescence microscopy to achieve superresolution (SR) nanoscopy has refreshed the portrait of molecular organizations and interactions in biological systems,1
It is technically challenging to transfer the current fluorescence-based SR principles for SRS microscopy. Raman transition is hardly saturable for its weak cross section; local bond vibration is much more inert compared with electronic-state-coupled fluorescence and hence difficult to yield photobleaching or blinking properties. Despite the difficulties, extensive efforts have been made in sharpening the spatial resolution of SRS10
Inspired by photoswitchable fluorescence-based SR techniques, such as reversible switchable/saturable optical fluorescent transition (RESOLFT) nanoscopy,17
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2 Methods
2.1 Chemical Synthesis
Methods for chemical synthesis and characterization of DTE-Ph can be found in the previous work.20 The synthesis of the DTE-Ph nanoparticles (DTE-Ph @ NPs) is stated below.
2 mL tetrahydrofuran (THF) solution mixture with a DTE concentration of 0.1 g/L and a poly(styrene-comaleic anhydride) (PSMA, cumene-terminated, average
2.2 SR-SRS Nanoscopy Setup
Our imaging setup was based on a conventional SRS microscope coupled with an additional visible and UV laser source and is illustrated in Fig. 1. For the SRS microscope, pulsed femtosecond laser beams from a commercial optical parametric oscillator (OPO) laser (Insight DS+, Newport, California, United States) were used as the laser source. The fixed fundamental 1040 nm laser was used as the Stokes beam, while the tunable OPO output (680 to 1300 nm) served as the pump beam. Chirped by SF57 glass rods, pulse durations of the pump and Stokes beams were stretched to
Figure 1.Design of SR-SRS microscopy. (a) Optical layout of SR-SRS; (b) spatial profiles of the visible beam before and after VR; (c) PSF of donut-shaped visible beam and UV beam; and (d) schematic diagram of the depleted and activated SRS at the detection frequency (
All laser powers were measured after the objective lens. For experiments in Figs. 2 and 3, the Stokes laser power was 9 mW and the pump laser power was 6 mW, while the visible light is
Figure 2.Properties of photoswitchable Raman probe and SR-SRS imaging of native probe molecules. (a) SRS spectra of DTE-Ph in the open- and closed-ring isomers upon visible and UV light; (b) SRS signal of DTE-Ph acquired at the UV-induced Raman frequency (
Figure 3.SR-SRS imaging of synthesized DTE-Ph NPs. (a) Schematics of NP synthesis; (b) size distribution of NPs determined by DLS; (c) SRS and SR-SRS images of the NPs spread on glass slide; (d) zoom-in images of the labeled rectangle regions in (c) and data fitted by Gaussian function of the single dots pointed with green arrowheads; (e) SRS and SR-SRS images of the NPs; (f) intensity profile along the lines marked in (e); and (g) statistical analysis of multiple particles (
Figure 4.SR-SRS imaging of live cells. (a), (c) SRS images of NPs treated HeLa cells at different Raman frequencies:
2.3 SRS Imaging of DTE-Ph @ NPs
The DTE-Ph @ NPs suspended solution (370 ppm; parts per million) was resuspended in deionized water by a 1:200 dilution. The solution is sonicated for 10 min at room temperature before being dropped onto a glass slide. When the solution is naturally dried, the slide is sandwiched by a cover glass for SRS imaging.
2.4 Cell Culturing and Imaging
Before labeling experiments, HeLa cells were cultured with a DMEM medium (Invitrogen, 11965092) supplemented with 10% FBS (Invitrogen, 16000) and 1% penicillin–streptomycin (Invitrogen, 15140) at a humidified environment at 37°C and 5%
2.5 Fourier Transform Infrared Spectroscopy
The IR spectra presented in Fig. S9 in the Supplementary Material were measured using a Bruker Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectrometer (Vertex 70v) equipped with a Hyperion 2000 microscope at room temperature. Before the test, DTE powder (
3 Results
3.1 RESOLFT-Based SR-SRS Microscopy
Typical far-field SR nanoscopy breaks the diffraction barrier by manipulating molecules into different states in the time (localization-based) or spatial (PSF engineering-based) domain.17,21
The optical setup of our SR-SRS was constructed by integrating a basic SRS signal detection/imaging framework with a RESOLFT focal engineering part [Fig. 1(a)]. For the conventional SRS, a fixed fundamental laser beam (1040 nm) stretched to
3.2 Reversible Photoswitching Properties of Raman Probes
Fluorescence-based SR microscopy mostly relies on the sensitive photochemical or photophysical properties of electronic transitions in fluorescence probes, which are usually lacking in vibrational transitions, hindering Raman probes from possessing photoactive properties for SR imaging. In our previous work, we screened out two photochromic vibrational probes—DTE-TMS and DTE-Ph (see Fig. S2 in the Supplementary Material) and demonstrated reversible photoswitchable SRS imaging.20 Here we chose to use a DTE-Ph molecule to investigate SR-SRS because of its enhanced SRS signal intensity and superior on–off ratio (
We first characterized the critical photoswitching properties of DTE-Ph to obtain the optimum activation and depletion parameters. The photoisomerization of DTE-Ph renders a large SRS frequency shift (
3.3 SR-SRS Imaging of Native Probe Molecules
With the determined activation and depletion parameters, we then performed SR-SRS on native probe molecules in powder form. The applied laser powers of the four beams were set as
3.4 SR-SRS Nanoscopy of Optimized DTE-Ph NPs
To more precisely characterize the resolution of SR-SRS, the probes were synthesized into DTE-Ph @ NPs as detailed in Sec. 2. Briefly, DTE-Ph molecules were swelled by PSMA in a concentration of around 90% and formed nanoscale spherical particles [Fig. 3(a)]. The size of the DTE-Ph @ NPs in water suspension was determined by dynamic light scattering (DLS), showing an average diameter of
DTE-Ph @ NPs were spread onto a glass slide by evaporating a drop of NP solution at room temperature and were imaged without further processing. SRS spectroscopy verifies the same photoswitching properties of DTE-Ph @ NPs as the native probe (see Fig. S4 in the Supplementary Material). Meanwhile, we noticed a slightly increased transient absorption background in the SRS spectrum under UV irradiation. Nonetheless, such a background was not seen in the open-ring isomer upon visible-light illumination; thus the on/off ratio remained sufficient to ensure a high improvement factor of the spatial resolution.
For direct comparison, we imaged the DTE-Ph @ NPs with conventional SRS and SR-SRS, as shown in Fig. 3(c). Individual bright dots of the NPs indicated that the particles were dispersed with small amount of aggregation, well suited for quantifying the resolution. As we switched from conventional SRS to SR-SRS by coupling the UV-activation and visible-depletion beams, the imaged NPs appeared much sharper, with reduced signal intensity and particle sizes, indicating a significant increase of spatial resolution [Fig. 3(c)]. This could also be verified by comparing the imaging results of UV-only, visible-only, and UV + visible (see Fig. S5 in the Supplementary Material), showing the resolution enhancement truly originated from the combination of UV and visible beams. Single-dot analysis showed that measured NP sizes as small as
We also demonstrated SR imaging in regions with more crowded particles, where dots/aggregates were often too close to be resolved in conventional SRS. In contrast, the fine features could be clearly identified in SR-SRS images, including the isolation of two nearby particles and the differentiation of multiple substructures in the aggregates [Fig. 3(e)]. More obvious distinction could be visualized in the merged image, as the dots imaged with SR-SRS (red) appeared more compact than that in conventional SRS (green). The resolution enhancement could also be clearly shown in the intensity profiles along the line cuts across particles and aggregations, as shown in Fig. 3(f) and the lines in Fig. 3(e). Unresolvable peaks in conventional SRS could now be well differentiated as multiple peaks in SR-SRS, and the sharpest peak in each profile was characterized by Gaussian function to verify the sub-100 nm resolution [see lines #1 and #2 in Fig. 3(f)]. More data for intuitive comparison of NP images may be found in Fig. S6 in the Supplementary Material. We have performed a statistical analysis of imaged particles to present the PSF size improvement [see Fig. 3(g)]; these were all the particles selected within a single image to meet the criteria of the weakest measurable signal to avoid aggregates larger than the SR PSF.
3.5 SR-SRS Imaging of Live Cells
To further demonstrate the potential of SR-SRS nanoscopy for biological imaging, we fed HeLa cells with the DTE-Ph @ NPs as detailed in Sec. 2, on account of the cellular uptake of NPs via endocytosis with low toxicity.27,28 The treated live HeLa cells were imaged with both conventional and SR-SRS modalities. In Fig. 4(a), we first checked the cellular regions using rapid-scanning mode in the C–H vibrational band for lipid/protein imaging (
4 Discussion
Biological research usually favors optical imaging methods because of their nondestructive nature, which is compatible with the dynamic observation of living systems, in contrast to destructive techniques, such as cryogenic electron microscopy, while the relatively low spatial resolution limits the optical study of structural details. Improving the resolution of optical microscopy has long been pursued; although it has shown numerous successes in SR fluorescence nanoscopy, it remains challenging for vibrational imaging to reach the subdiffraction limit. SRS microscopy offers high chemical specificity and multiplexity by probing molecular bond vibrations.5,6 In addition to the initial aims of label-free chemical imaging,29
Thanks to the superb photoswitching properties of DTE-Ph probe, we have reached down to sub-100 nm resolution with low-power UV and visible beams, in contrast to other types of optics-oriented SR-SRS with moderate resolution improvement.11,13 Comparing with sample-oriented SR-SRS methods,12,14 our approach does not require complex sample processing; hence, it is compatible with live bioimaging. With functional targeting modification, the SR modality could be reached in organelle structure imaging to map subcellular architectures and study their biological behaviors, such as mitochondria–mitochondria contact and endoplasmic reticulum modulation. SR-SRS may also be integrated with immunohistochemical labeling to resolve finer structures with higher specificity. Note that ideally SR supermultiplex vibrational imaging should be achieved with the current experimental design. However, engineering a series of high-quality photoswitchable Raman probes becomes the technical bottleneck to realizing this goal. Moreover, as can be seen in the quantitative results [Figs. 2(g), 2(h), 3(d), 3(f), and 4(b), 4(d)], the SNR of SR-SRS may be the ultimate limit for further improvement of spatial resolution; yet it is inappropriate to increase the power of pump and Stokes beams because they are more likely to induce photocyclization through the two-photon absorption effect (see Fig. S8 in the Supplementary Material). Apart from the experimental improvements, image denoising might be an additional choice to increase the SNR, owing to the rapid development of deep-learning algorithms.39
In conclusion, we have constructed SR-SRS nanoscopy based on photoswitchable probes combined with RESOLFT strategy and demonstrated improved resolution down to sub-100 nm. Both in vitro and live-cell imaging results were consistent with the enhancement factor of
Jianpeng Ao received his PhD in physics from Fudan University, Shanghai, China, in 2023. His research mainly focuses on the technical innovation and application of nonlinear vibrational imaging.
Xiaofeng Fang received his PhD from the School of Electronic Science and Engineering at Jilin University in 2017. He continued his research as a postdoc at the Southern University of Science and Technology from 2017 to 2019. Currently, he is an assistant professor in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Southern University of Science and Technology. His research interests include the design, synthesis, and biomedical applications of organic functional materials.
Liyang Ma received his bachelor’s degree in physics from Shandong University, Shandong, China, in 2021. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China. His research mainly focuses on the biomedical applications of SRS microscopy.
Zhijie Liu received his bachelor’s degree in physics from Wuhan University of Technology, Wuhan, China, in 2019. He is currently a PhD candidate in the Department of Physics, Fudan University, Shanghai, China. His research mainly focuses on deep-learning-based imaging processing.
Simin Wu received her PhD in physics from Fudan University, Shanghai, China, in 2023. She is interested in studying fundamental sciences in innovative materials via pump–probe spectroscopy.
Changfeng Wu received his PhD from the Department of Chemistry at Clemson University. He is currently a professor and associate chair in the Department of Biomedical Engineering at the Southern University of Science and Technology. His research is focused on the development of fluorescent probes for SR imaging, biosensing, and nanomedicine.
Minbiao Ji received his PhD from the Department of Physics at Stanford University. He is currently a professor in the Department of Physics at Fudan University. His research is focused on using nonlinear optical spectroscopy and microscopy to study chemical physics, material sciences, and biomedical problems.
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Jianpeng Ao, Xiaofeng Fang, Liyang Ma, Zhijie Liu, Simin Wu, Changfeng Wu, Minbiao Ji, "Photoswitchable vibrational nanoscopy with sub-100-nm optical resolution," Adv. Photon. 5, 066001 (2023)
Category: Research Articles
Received: Jun. 22, 2023
Accepted: Sep. 12, 2023
Published Online: Oct. 7, 2023
The Author Email: Ji Minbiao (minbiaoj@fudan.edu.cn)