Fluorescence Microscopy Protocols

Certain fluorescent dyes such as Blankophor have a high affinity for the b -glycosidically linked polysaccharides such as glucan and chitin, which are main the constituents of the fungal cell wall. Therefore, these fluorescent dyes can be used for screening clinical samples for the presence of fungal elements. This procedure can be performed using the following specimens: Nail, Skin, Bronchial alveolar lavage fluid, Sputum and Biopsies. - [Read Detection of Fungi by Fluorescence Microscopy Using Fluorescent Brighteners]

Most biological specimens are relatively transparent, so details of internal and intracellular morphology are difficult to image in untreated living specimens using simple bright-field techniques. Fluorescence microscopy offers greater advantages and possibilities for increasing contrast and determining the specific localization of molecules in cells. Article outlines the three methods most commonly used to introduce an appropriate label into Drosophila tissue without perturbing the process. - [Read Fluorescent Reagents for Live Cell Imaging and Their Introduction into Cells]

Article presents an introduction to fluorescence microscopy. Includes: Fundamentals of Excitation and Emission; Stokes' Shift; Fading, Quenching, and Photobleaching; Fluorescence Light Sources; Filter Terminology; The Fluorescence Light Budget; Detecting Single Molecules. - [Read Introduction to Fluorescence Microscopy]

Multiphoton fluorescence microscopy is a powerful new technology that enables the acquisition of optical sections without the use of a pinhole aperture typically used for confocal microscopy. The technique is based upon the two-photon principle: A fluorescent molecule simultaneously absorbs two photons producing an electronic transition from the ground to excited state equal to two times the energy of each incident photon. - [Read Multiphoton Images from LSM 510 NLO System]