EUGENE– Researchers at the University of Oregon have developed a new tool for microscopic imaging that allows scientists to observe nature with unparalleled acuity–from the biochemical activity within living cells to the subtle choreography of giant polymer molecules.

UO assistant professor of chemistry Andrew Marcus demonstrated his new technique, called Fourier imaging correlation spectroscopy (FICS), in the cover story of the Oct 2000 issue of Biophysical Journal.

"What we’ve developed with FICS is a new way, a different way, to look at biological function," says Marcus, who is also a member of the UO Institute of Material Sciences, as well as an associate member of the UO Institute of Molecular Biology and the Oregon Center for Optics.

In an editorial article in the same publication, J. Michael Schurr of the University of Washington department of chemistry writes "FICS is one of the most promising new techniques for studying molecular motion in complex systems, including living systems that has appeared in recent years."

Simplified, the FICS technique involves illuminating a target–a part of a cell, for example–by projecting a pattern of light over it and sweeping the projected pattern back and forth millions of times per second. The light emitted from the target is collected and computer-processed to get information about the motion of molecules within the target.

The Biophysical Journal article describes research using the mitochondria of a living cell as the target. A cell’s mitochondria somewhat resembles a steel wool scouring pad though much smaller–about the width of a human hair and made up of tubes each of which are about one-half a micron in diameter.

Marcus, in collaboration with UO biology professor Roderick Capaldi, used both the FICS technique and a more traditional imaging technique, known as digital video fluorescence microscopy (DVFM), to investigate the activities of the mitochondria.

"One of the key advantages of FICS over DVFM is its superior temporal resolution; that is, it can detect signals very quickly and thus track movements very accurately," Marcus says. "In our research, the FICS images revealed a new kind of movement inside the mitochondria, a movement of biological origin that was not previously observed using DVFM.

Marcus’s research demonstrates that FICS is a powerful new tool that researchers pursuing numerous other avenues of investigation will be able to use.

"The technique can be applied to the study of proteins, enzymes and drugs at work; the function of sub-cellular structures; and the effects of disease at the cellular level," Marcus notes. "Since all these areas are of immense medical interest there will doubtless be lots of interest in this technique from biomedical and pharmaceutical researchers."

The technique also has numerous applications outside biology. The combination of extreme sensitivity and exceptionally fast temporal resolution allows researchers using FICS to study activity on the molecular level. It could answer scientists’ questions about the movements that take place among long chain polymer molecules. This information could be of enormous economic value in that these polymers make up many of the most useful and valuable materials used by humans: wood, plastics and petro-products.

"Better understanding of molecular motion in complex materials may lead to a greater ability to manipulate them to useful ends," Marcus says. "For example, strong but brittle plastics might be made more malleable. Better fiber optics may result from an improved understand of the molecular activity in glass-forming compounds. A lot of exciting research in the computer chip industry and elsewhere is exploring the characteristics of thin films; by using FICS, researchers will have much better idea of how the molecules in these films are behaving."

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