A series of spontaneously blinking dyes for super-resolution microscopy.

Holland, Katie L; Plutkis, Sarah E; English, Brian P; Daugird, Timothy A; Sau, Abhishek; Grimm, Jonathan B; Zheng, Qinsi; Sharma, Ankith et al. · Nat Methods · 2026

basic_science · Level V

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Abstract

Spontaneously blinking fluorophores toggle between nonfluorescent and fluorescent forms without caging groups or redox buffers, enabling super-resolution imaging. The intrinsic blinking of such dyes is governed by molecular structure and modulated by environment; there is no one-size-fits-all fluorophore suitable for every imaging context. We report dyes with tuned on:off ratios that enable single-molecule localization microscopy and super-resolution optical fluctuation imaging of biomolecular structures in vitro and in cells.

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