A new microscopy breakthrough is revealing the oceans’ invisible life

 



During the COVID-19 pandemic, EMBL Group Leader Gautam Dey received a Zoom call from collaborator Omaya Dudin, then leading a research group at EPFL. Dudin had just succeeded in adapting a new imaging method to visualize the inner organization of Ichthyosporea (a marine protist closely related to animals and fungi). This breakthrough overcame a long-standing obstacle: the species' tough cell walls.

The technique, known as expansion microscopy, was originally developed at MIT and later refined into ultrastructure expansion microscopy (U-ExM) by Paul Guichard and Virginie Hamel at the University of Geneva. Their improvements made the protist's cell walls permeable, allowing scientists to clearly observe its inner architecture for the first time.

Motivated by this success, Dudin, Dey, Guichard, and Hamel began a long-term collaboration. Three years later, their partnership has produced an unprecedented body of knowledge about hundreds of protist species and laid the groundwork for a "planetary atlas" of plankton.

The EMBL-led Traversing European Coastlines (TREC) expedition offered an ideal opportunity to explore these marine organisms further. Recently published in Cell, the team's findings provide detailed insight into the cellular structures of more than 200 plankton species, especially eukaryotes (organisms whose cells contain a membrane-bound nucleus). This research marks the beginning of PlanExM, a TREC project designed to map the hidden structural diversity of plankton using expansion microscopy.

Exploring Marine Microbes in Unprecedented Detail

At Roscoff, France -- one of the first TREC expedition sampling sites -- the Station Biologique maintains one of Europe's most comprehensive collections of marine microorganisms. Expecting only a few dozen samples, the team asked manager Ian Probert for material to test their technique. Instead, they gained access to over 200 species.


"We spent three days and nights just fixing those samples. This was a treasure trove we could not let go of," said co-first author Felix Mikus, who completed his PhD in the Dey Group and is now a postdoc in Dudin's laboratory at the University of Geneva.

How Expansion Microscopy Works

Expansion microscopy, which marks its 10th anniversary this year, physically enlarges biological samples. A sample -- containing cells, tissues, or single-celled organisms -- is embedded in a transparent gel that absorbs water and expands. Remarkably, the cell's internal structures remain intact and stretch proportionally, allowing researchers to enlarge the specimen up to 16 times without using high-powered lenses.

#MarineMicroscopy
#OceanDiscovery
#MicrobialLife
#MarineBiology
#OceanScience
#PlanktonResearch
#MicroscopyInnovation
#UnderwaterWorld
#InvisibleOceanLife
#ScientificBreakthrough

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