For more information and protocols of expansion microscopy, do not hesitate to ask any EuroBioImaging node familiar with it and you can find any other websites such as expansionmicroscopy.org

Thanks to the training in expansion microscopy provided at the Advanced Light Microscopy National Unit in SciLifeLabs, in Stockholm, BRALM was able to fully adopt this technique to the scientific community we serve. We are really grateful!

Last year, one of our microscopy specialists had that training opportunity to optimize the expansion microscopy protocols at our facility through the EuroBioImaging Job Shadowing program, funded by EVOLVE Project, where he learned a lot and allowed networking between different EuroBioImaging nodes.

Main difficulties with expansion microscopy in facilities imply optimization of the protocols, gel handling, different sample analysis and working distances, photobleaching and sample drift. Because of that, training on the technique is required to deal with these problems.

Expansion microscopy allows to increase lateral resolution, obtaining resolutions higher than the optical diffraction limit, with up to 4% geometrical defects. This is suitable for fixed cell samples, and no need of expensive super-resolution microscopes (or use it to improve resolution more!)

Structures are attached chemically to a swellable charged polymer system, that after denaturing and possible staining, are magnified by expanding isotropically in presence of water. Slices of the gel are cut, mounted on glass-bottom supports and afterwards visualized in microscopes.

What is Expansion Microscopy? It is a sample preparation strategy for biological simples that allows the observation of small structures with higher resolution without the need of using super-resolution techniques.

Expansion microscopy allows to increase lateral resolution, obtaining resolutions higher than the optical diffraction limit, with up to 4% geometrical defects. This is suitable for fixed cell samples, and no need of expensive super-resolution microscopes (or use it to improve resolution more!)

Hi, we are BRALM, Basque Resource for Advanced Light Microscopy. We are a scientific microscopy facility and we would like to be added to the science feed.

Here’s a link to our website: bralm.biofisika.org 🧪