Ultrastructural visualization of chromatin in cancer pathogenesis using a simple small-molecule fluorescent probe

Abstract

Imaging chromatin organization at the molecular-scale resolution remains an important endeavor in basic and translational research. Stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (STORM) is a powerful superresolution imaging technique to visualize nanoscale molecular organization down to the resolution of ~20 to 30 nm. Despite the substantial progress in imaging chromatin organization in cells and model systems, its routine application on assessing pathological tissue remains limited. It is, in part, hampered by the lack of simple labels that consistently generates high-quality STORM images on the highly processed clinical tissue. We developed a fast, simple, and robust small-molecule fluorescent probe—cyanine 5–conjugated Hoechst—for routine superresolution imaging of nanoscale nuclear architecture on clinical tissue. We demonstrated the biological and clinical significance of imaging superresolved chromatin structure in cancer development and its potential clinical utility for cancer risk stratification.