Nanobodies and their applications in dSTORM microscopy

Direct stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy (dSTORM), is a single-molecule imaging technique, which commonly uses fluorescently labelled antibodies to detect the cellular protein of interest. Currently, this method is unsuitable for the quantitative analysis of nanoscale biochemical reactions. One of the reasons is the labelling strategy for dSTORM in which target proteins are labelled with multiple antibodies each of which is conjugated to a number of fluorophores. To count the number of target proteins, a ratio of one fluorophore to each protein should be assured. We are developing a new labelling technology involving nanobodies, which will enable 1:1 protein to fluorophore ratio.