Visualization of the intracellular structures of bacteria using expansion microscopy

Abstract

Expansion microscopy (ExM) is a powerful tool which allows to visualize intracellular structures with increased resolution due to physical widening of the sample. ExM resolution is comparable to that of some super-resolution microscopy techniques, but it does not require the use of complex and expensive optical equipment, thereby providing improvement in resolution even if relatively simple microscopes are used. In this work we successfully utilized ExM to visualize structures formed by FtsZ protein and DNA in Escherichia coli cells. The results of the work demonstrate that structures formed by both FtsZ and DNA are highly sensitive to the sample preparation procedure which should be optimized in each case of the ExM use.