Figure 2
From: Molecular histopathology of matrix proteins through autofluorescence super-resolution microscopy
MUSI-tAF provides a better estimate of density variation of dense collagen. We simulated dense fibrils to represent (a) actual structures, (b) diffraction-limited (DL) image, and (c) MUSI-tAF by introducing a blur function. (d) Quantification of the density variation in both dense and sparse regions showed that MUSI-tAF is closer to the actual fibrils. N = 30 per group, all plots are represented as \(\mu\) ± SD, ns (not significant), ***p \(\le\) 0.001, ****p \(\le\) 0.0001. For statistical analysis, we used one-way ANOVA (95% confidence interval). The effect was realized in full-field (FF) images of rat tail collagen-I with both dense and sparse regions under (e) diffraction-limited and corresponding (f) MUSI-tAF. A zoomed-in region of (g) diffraction-limited and (h) MUSI-tAF shows resolution enhancement in closely spaced fibrils (yellow arrows). Comparison of (h) with (i) full-field 100\(\times\) diffraction-limited image shows MUSI-tAF images fibrils from a thicker section of the tissue as it is rendered from a low magnification objective with larger DOF, while such regions are rejected in 100 \(\times\) images with a smaller DOF (yellow arrows).
