Super-resolution imaging of the dynamic cleavage of intercellular tunneling nanotubes

As a new method of cell-cell communication,tunneling nanotubes(TNTs)play important roles in cell-cell signaling and mass exchanges.However,a lack of powerful tools to visualize dynamic TNTs with high temporal/spatial resolution restricts the exploration of their formation and cleavage,hindering the complete understanding of its mechanism.Herein,we present the first example of using stochastic optical reconstruction microscopy(STORM)to observe the tube-like structures of TNTs linking live cells with an easily prepared fluorescent dye.Because of this new imaging microscopy,the cleavage process of TNTs was observed with a high spatial resolution.