Super-resolution microscopy (SRM) has become an indispensable tool for monitoring cytoskeleton dynamics, as well as the imaging, detection, and tracing of functional biomolecules in living cells. It overcomes the barrier of diffraction limit and allows for the visualization of sub-cellular structure down to the sub-10nm level. Several types of SRM techniques are available, with a vast number of applications in interdisciplinary research fields. To date, many fluorescent probes such as fluorescent proteins, organic dyes, nanomaterials, quantum dots, polymer dots, organic dots, carbon dots and upconversion nanomaterials have been employed for SRM. Each has its own limitations, and as such, in order to obtain a better-resolved structure, improving the efficiency of these probes is of great importance.The performance of fluorescent probes in super-resolution microscopy is dependent on several important photo-physical parameters. Organic molecule, with their smaller size, have excellent blinking properties, but are often dim and undergo rapid photobleaching.Photoactivable or photoswitchable fluorescent proteins suffer from poor localization precision due to their low photon counts. Nanomaterials, quantum dots, carbon dots, polymers dots, etc. have shown promising results due to their high brightness and photostability but their large size compared to organic molecule limits their potential applications.In this research topic, we present a collection of original research, mini review, perspective and review articles touching upon different aspects of new fluorescent probe materials that advance the SRM techniques one step ahead to the current state of art in the field. It also provides a new labelling strategy of the fluorescent probe in the live cell SRM imaging. More than 50% of total background light rejection was achieved, providing higher signal to background ratio images of the MCF-10A samples and mouse brains. This photobleaching imprinting technology can be easily adapted to other fluorescence dyes or proteins, which may have application in studies involving relatively large and nontransparent organisms.In this collection, the mini review, perspective and reviews summarizes the detail information In summary, the editors hope that the collection presented in this research topic "Recent Advances in Fluorescent Probes for Super-Resolution Microscopy" will contribute to the progress of research and development activities in the field.
All authors listed have made a substantial, direct and intellectual contribution to the work, and approved it for publication.
CKN thank to the kind support of science and engineering board (SERB) core research grant (CRG) India for the financial support with the project number CRG/2020/000268. The editors are grateful to the authors for submitting their valuable work and to all the reviewers who contributed to this effort by thoroughly evaluating the submitted articles and providing thoughtful advice on how these can be improved.
