A Big Look

To examine something small, you can either look very closely, or try to make it bigger. Microscopy – fundamental to biomedical science, as the BPoD archive shows – has long helped magnify the miniscule matter of our bodies. But conventional light microscopy’s detail is limited by the physical properties of light, and other techniques are financially and technically demanding. Expansion microscopy aims to provide greater precision in a more accessible way, by enlarging samples, rather than increasing magnification. Samples are embedded in a gel that then swells. The original technique expanded samples four-fold, but a new approach has explored alternative hydrogel recipes to cook up a version that can expand to up to 10 times its size. The result is a comparatively simple technique that enlarges mouse brain tissue and human cell cultures (3D render shown, with distinct cellular structures clearly visible), broadening access to the finest details of life.

Written by Anthony Lewis

Anthony Lewis

Writer

Ant was the web editor in the early days of BPoD, and has since worked with the UK’s top science organisations as a writer and multimedia producer. He now splits his time between freelance work and managing multimedia at The Lancet.

Website

• Video by Hugo GJ Damstra and colleagues
• Cell Biology, Neurobiology and Biophysics, Department of Biology, Faculty of Science, Utrecht University, Utrecht, Netherlands and Janelia Campus, HHMI, Ashburn, VA, USA
• Video originally published with a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0)
• Published in eLife, February 2022