Abstract
The molecular machinery of life is founded on chiral building blocks, but no experimental technique is currently available to distinguish or monitor chiral systems in live cell bio-imaging studies. Luminescent chiral molecules encode a unique optical fingerprint within emitted circularly polarized light (CPL) carrying information about the molecular environment, conformation, and binding state. Here, we present a CPL Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope (CPL-LSCM) capable of simultaneous chiroptical contrast based live-cell imaging of endogenous and engineered CPL-active cellular probes. Further, we demonstrate that CPL-active probes can be activated using two-photon excitation, with complete CPL spectrum recovery. The combination of these two milestone results empowers the multidisciplinary imaging community, allowing the study of chiral interactions on a sub-cellular level in a new (chiral) light.
Original language | English |
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Article number | 553 |
Journal | Nature Communications |
Volume | 13 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 27 Jan 2022 |
Keywords
- circularly polarized light (CPL)
- CPL Laser Scanning Confocal Microscope (CPL-LSCM)
- CPL microscopy
- enantioselective differential chiral contrast (EDCC) imaging