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4) Visualization of infections and analysis of virus-host interactions during virus infection using advanced microscopy approaches

Foto: Sascha Mannel

We recently established workflows and microscopic methods to study and analyze virus-infected cells, LDs and associated proteins or cellular structures using confocal, super-resolution, and correlative light and electron microscopy. Examples are the use of super resolution microscopy to investigate the subcellular distribution of viral proteins in relation to LDs and correlative light and electron microscopy (Lassen et al., J. Cell Sci., 2019, Eggert et al., PLoS One, 2014, Vartiainen et al., J Synchrotron Radiat, 2014).

Examples of visualizing infection. (A) Electron tomography of HCV-infected PLIN2-deficient cells with lipid droplets (yellow), double membrane sacs (red), and HCV-induced vesicular structures (cyan) (Lassen et al., J. Cell Sci., 2019). (B) Lipid droplets (green) in HCV-infected (nuclear magenta) or uninfected (mitochondrial magenta) cells (Hofmann et al., Biochim. Biophys. Acta, 2018). (C, D) Confocal and super-resolution microscopy of HCV-infected cells, HCV core (green), E2 (red), and lipid droplets (blue) (Eggert et al., PLoS One, 2014). (E) Occludin (red) and HNF4 alpha (green) expression in differentiated hepatocyte-like cells (Schobel et al., Sci. Rep., 2018). (F) Lipid droplets (cyan) and mitochondria (red) imaged using structure-illumination microscopy.