This new technique has the advantage of visualizing in vivo tissues, in real time and at very high resolution. It can visualize cellular events that have fluorescence. It is technically very similar to fluorescence microscopy, but the beam of light comes from the side, thereby generating a selective plane illumination that is captured by a widefield microscope. It shows high tissue penetration, high sensitivity, low bleaching, and especially fast acquisition times. This is particularly useful for long studies. One significant drawback so far is that this technique has difficulties with large structures.
In my opinion Selective Plane Illumination Microscopy is particularly useful in time-consuming studies and presents an advantage over MSOT in those cases. Also, it can potentially quantify cellular events. The following is a good paper on the topic:
Huisken J, etal., Selective plane illumination microscopy techniques in developmental biology, Development 136, 2009, 1963-1975
Adolfo Cotter, MD
Jul 14/2010
