Cover Image Left: Papaver fauriei growing only on the gravelly alpine slopes of Mt. Rishiri. Right: Cultivated poppies (Papaver sp.) found in seaside towns on Rishiri Island. Photographed by Kazuki Kosugi and Tetsuya Kondo. Rishiri Island, Hokkaido, Japan
Cover Image Left: Close‐up photograph of a hairy plant of Arabidopsis halleri subsp. gemmifera. Right: Larva of Phaedon brassicae feeding on a glabrous plant. Photographs by Yasuhiro Sato. Locality: Taka‐cho, Hyogo, Japan
Cover Image A seed predator Sibinia weevil visiting a flower of Dianthus superbus var. longicalycinus. Photographed by Takashi Miyake. Araihama Forest Park, Niigata, Japan.
Cover Image Melocactus sergipensis N.P. Taylor & M.V. Meiado (Cactaceae) at the holotype locality with limestone substrate in an area of Caatinga, Simão Dias municipality, Sergipe, Brazil. Photo taken by Marcos V. Meiado.
Main flower‐visitng insects of Bidens fronds. Photographed by Bing Zhou in Jían City, Jiangxi Province, China. Cover picture from: Reproductive biological characteristics potentially contributed to invasiveness in an alien invasive plant Bidens frondosa, Yan XH et al. See pages 107–116. Article link here .
Photoconversion, an irreversible shift in a fluorophore emission spectrum after light exposure, is a powerful tool for marking cellular and subcellular compartments and tracking their dynamics in vivo. This paper reports on the photoconversion properties of Di‐8‐ANEPPS, a commercially available membrane dye. When illuminated with near‐infrared femtosecond laser pulses, Di‐8‐ANEPPS undergoes multiphoton photoconversion as indicated by the supralinear dependence of the conversion rate ρpc on the incident power (), and by the ability to photoconvert a thin optical section in a three‐dimensional matrix. The characteristic emission spectrum changed from red to blue, and ratiometric analysis on single cells in vitro revealed a 65‐fold increase in the blue to red wavelength ratio after photoconversion. The spectral shift is preserved in vivo for hours, making Di‐8‐ANEPPS a useful dye for intravital cell marking and tracking applications.
Cover Image Top left: Natural hybrids of Yezo spruce (Picea jezoensis var. jezoensis) and Sakhalin spruce (Picea glehnii) occur at low frequencies in this forest around bog in The University of Tokyo Hokkaido Forest, Furano, Hokkaido. Top right: Current‐year shoot of Yezo spruce (left), Sakhalin spruce (right), and their natural hybrid (center). Bottom left: A branch with ripe cones of Sakhalin spruce in Ochiishi, Nemuro, Hokkaido. Bottom right: A branch with ripe cones of Yezo spruce in the Uryu Experimental Forest, Hokkaido University, Horokanai, Hokkaido. All photos taken by Mineaki Aizawa.
A new type of high‐throughput imaging flow cytometer (>20 000 cells s‐1) based upon an all‐optical ultrafast laser‐scanning imaging technique, called free‐space angular‐chirp‐enhanced delay (FACED) is reported. FACED imaging flow cytometers enables high‐throughput visualization of functional morphology of individual cells with subcellular resolution. It critically empowers largescale and deep characterization of single cells and their heterogeneity with high statistical power— an ability to become increasingly critical in single‐cell analysis adopted in a wide range of biomedical and life‐science applications. Further details can be found in the article by Wenwei Yan et al. ( e201700178 )
Third Harmonic Generation (THG) microscopy as a non‐invasive, label free imaging methodology, allows linkage of lipid profiles with various breast cancer cells. The collected THG signal arise mostly from the lipid droplets and the membrane lipid bilayer. Quantification of THG signal can accurately distinguish HER2‐positive cells. Further analysis using Fourier transform infrared (FTIR) spectra reveals cancer‐specific profiles, correlating lipid raft‐corresponding spectra to THG signal, associating thus THG to chemical information.
Protein secondary structural alteration in the serum sample as induced by colitis has been demonstrated via the spectral fitting. Using DSS mouse models of acute colitis and IL10‐/‐ for chronic colitis, a significant difference in the integral ratio of Gaussian energy bands representing α‐helix and β‐pleated sheet structures were obtained. Further details can be found in the article by Jitto Titus et al. ( e201700057 ).
Nanoscopy enables breaking down the light diffraction limit and reveals the nanostructures of objects being studied using light. In 2014, three scientists pioneered the development of nanoscopy and won the Nobel Prize in Chemistry. This recognized the achievement of the past twenty years in the field of nanoscopy. However, fluorescent probes used in the field of nanoscopy are still numbered. Here, we review the currently available four categories of probes and existing methods to improve the performance of probes.
In this paper the utilization of smartphone as a detection platform for colorimetric quantification of biological macromolecules has been demonstrated. Using V‐channel of HSV color space, the quantification of BSA protein, catalase enzyme and carbohydrate (using D‐glucose) have been successfully investigated. A custom designed android application has been developed for estimating the total concentration of biological macromolecules. The results have been compared with that of a standard spectrophotometer which is generally used for colorimetric quantification in laboratory settings by measuring its absorbance at a specific wavelength. The results obtained with the designed sensor is found to be similar when compared with the spectrophotometer data. The designed sensor is low cost, robust and we envision that it could promote diverse fields of bio‐analytical investigations.
Schematic illustration of the smartphone sensing mechanism for colorimetric analysis of biomolecular samples. 相似文献
Germanium vs Silicon: All‐dielectric nanoparticles provides the heat resistance for proteins under light‐induced heating. Further details can be found in the article by Andrei A. Krasilin et al. ( e201700322 )
Congenital cardiovascular defects are the leading cause of birth defect related death. It has been hypothesized that fluid mechanical forces of embryonic blood flow affect cardiovascular development and play a role in congenital malformations. Studies in small animal embryos can improve our understanding of congenital malformations and can lead to better treatment. We present a feasibility study in which high‐resolution optical coherence tomography (OCT) and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) are combined to provide quantitative analysis of the embryonic flow mechanics and the associated anatomy in a small animal model.
Optical spectroscopic techniques show improved diagnostic accuracy for non‐invasive detection of cervical cancers. In this study, sensitivity and specificity of two in vivo modalities, i.e diffuse reflectance spectroscopy (DRS) and Raman spectroscopy (RS), were compared by utilizing spectra recorded from the same sites (67 tumor (T), 22 normal cervix (C), and 57 normal vagina (V)). Data was analysed using principal component – linear discriminant analysis (PC‐LDA), and validated using leave‐one‐out‐cross‐validation (LOOCV). Sensitivity, specificity, positive predictive value and negative predictive value for classification between normal (N) and tumor (T) sites were 91%, 96%, 95% and 93%, respectively for RS and 85%, 95%, 93% and 88%, respectively for DRS. Even though DRS revealed slightly lower diagnostic accuracies, owing to its lower cost and portability, it was found to be more suited for cervical cancer screening in low resource settings. On the other hand, RS based devices could be ideal for screening patients with centralised facilities in developing countries.