Hsiao-lu D. Lee

TL;DR: A red-emitting dicyanomethylenedihydrofuran push-pull fluorophore is reengineered so that it is dark until photoactivated with a short burst of low-intensity violet light, which provides a new class of bright photoactivatable fluorophores needed for super-resolution imaging schemes that require active control of single molecule emission.

TL;DR: HaloTag-based target-specific azido DCDHFs are reported, a class of photoactivatable push-pull fluorogens which produce bright fluorescent labels suitable for single-molecule superresolution imaging in live bacterial and fixed mammalian cells.

TL;DR: This Perspective summarizes the field of live-cell imaging of single biomolecules and highlights its benefits in probing heterogeneous populations, one molecule at a time, as well as from advances in microscopes and detectors.

TL;DR: A red-emitting DCDHF fluorophore is reengineered so that it is dark until photoactivated with a short burst of low-intensity violet light, providing a new class of bright photoactivatable small-molecule fluorophores, which are needed for super-resolution imaging schemes that require active control of single-Molecule emission.

TL;DR: It is demonstrated that the azide-to-amine photoactivation process is generally applicable to a variety of push-pull chromophores, and the photophysical parameters including photoconversion quantum yield, photostability, and turn-on ratio are characterized.