Bioimaging Techniques At Cellular Level In Situ Methods - Part I

Bioimaging techniques in situ currently comprise a wide range of tools employed in cell biology. As opposed to biochemical methods, they enable to investigate localization and level of molecules in single cells. Though applied for over 50 years now, in situ techniques are constantly being improved for increased quality and sensitivity of obtained results. Modern bioimaging techniques allow not only to visualize spatial protein or nucleic acid distribution, but also to verify if these molecules colocalize in cellular compartments, and even if they actually interact with each other. Using of signal amplification techniques enables detection and visualization of even small amount of investigated antigens, and the variant of in situ hybridization created lately makes it possible to observe single endogenous transcripts. This paper is a review of the most commonly used bioimaging methods on the cellular level.