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Updated: Feb 9, 2026

Live Cell Fluorescence Microscopy to Observe Essential Processes During Microbial Cell Growth
Published on: November 24, 2017
Observing DNA in live cells
Lucien E Weiss1, Tal Naor1, Yoav Shechtman2
1Department of Biomedical Engineering, Technion - Israel Institute of Technology, Haifa 32000, Israel.
Abstract:
The structural organization and dynamics of DNA are known to be of paramount importance in countless cellular processes, but capturing these events poses a unique challenge. Fluorescence microscopy is well suited for these live-cell investigations, but requires attaching fluorescent labels to the species under investigation. Over the past several decades, a suite of techniques have been developed for labeling and imaging DNA, each with various advantages and drawbacks. Here, we provide an overview of the labeling and imaging tools currently available for visualizing DNA in live cells, and discuss their suitability for various applications.
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