Phase intensity nanoscope (PINE) opens long-time investigation windows of living matter.

Fundamental to all living organisms and living soft matter are emergent processes in which the reorganization of individual constituents at the nanoscale drives group-level movements and shape changes at the macroscale over time. However, light-induced degradation of fluorophores, photobleaching, is a significant problem in extended bioimaging in life science. Here, we report opening a long-time investigation window by nonbleaching phase intensity nanoscope: PINE.

Dynamic observations of CRISPR-Cas target recognition and cleavage heterogeneities.

CRISPR-Cas systems (clustered regularly interspaced short palindromic repeats) have shown great potential as efficient gene editing tools in disease therapeutics. Although numerous CRISPR-Cas systems have been developed, detailed mechanisms of target recognition and DNA cleavage are still unclear. In this work, we dynamically observe the entire process of conjugation, target recognition and DNA cleavage by single particle spectroscopy of CRISPR-Cas systems on single particle surfaces (gold) with the unique advantage of extended time periods.