The present invention provides compositions and methods that allow lipid membranes to be imaged optically at nanoscale resolution via a lipid-optimized form of expansion microscopy, also referred to as membrane expansion microscopy (mExM). mExM, via a post-expansion antibody labeling protocol, enables protein-lipid relationships to be imaged in organelles such as mitochondria, the endoplasmic reticulum, the nuclear membrane, and the Golgi apparatus. mExM may be of use in a variety of biological contexts, including the study of cell-cell interactions, intracellular transport, and neural connectomics.
Membrane Probes for Expansion Microscopy