Microscopy preprints – applications in biology

Posted by FocalPlane, on 27 June 2025

Here is a curated selection of preprints published recently. In this post, we share preprints that use microscopy tools to answer questions in biology.

Integration of past caspase activity biases cell elimination in vivo
Tom Cumming, Alexis Villars, Anđela Davidović, Florence Levillayer, Léo Valon, Romain Levayer

Developmental system drift in dorsoventral patterning is linked to transitions to autonomous development in Annelida
Allan M. Carrillo-Baltodano, Emmanuel Haillot, Steffanie Mutiara Meha, Imran Luqman, Artenis Pashaj, Yun-Ju Lee, Tsai-Ming Lu, David E. K. Ferrier, Stephan Q. Schneider, José M. Martín-Durán

FtsW protein-protein interactions visualized in live Staphylococcus aureus cells by FLIM-FRET
Nils Y. Meiresonne, Sara F. Costa, Simon Schäper, Mário J. Ferreira, Patricia Reed, Zach Hensel, Fábio Fernandes, Mariana G. Pinho

Lifelong development of zebrafish gills: Asymmetries in early vascular patterning predict adult gill architecture
Mathieu Preußner, Anna Mertens, Marion Basoglu, Virginie Lecaudey

Figure extracted from Preußner, *et al.* The image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Embryonic development of C. elegans sense organs
Leland R. Wexler, Irina Kolotuev, Maxwell G. Heiman

In vivo nuclear envelope adaptation during cell migration across confining embryonic tissue environments
Hanna-Maria Häkkinen, Soraya Villaseca, Zain Alhashem, Szymon Chomiczewski, Maxime Desevedavy, Solene Leleux, Atrin Hamidzadeh, Filomena Gallo, Dina El-Zohiry, Victor Petre, Elena Scarpa

A closed feedback between tissue phase transitions and morphogen gradients drives patterning dynamics
Camilla Autorino, Diana Khoromskaia, Louise Harari, Elisa Floris, Harry Booth, Cristina Pallares-Cartes, Vesta Petrasiunaite, Michael Dorrity, Bernat Corominas-Murtra, Zena Hadjivasiliou, Nicoletta I. Petridou

Diatom ultrastructural diversity across controlled and natural environments
Serena Flori, Felix Mikus, Eliott Flaum, Kevin Moog, Sarah Guessoum, Thomas Beavis, Soraya M. Zwahlen, Inés Romero-Brey, Viola Oorshot, Marine Olivetta, Melissa Steele-Ogus, Ellen Yeh, Mobile Labs Team, Omaya Dudin, Yannick Schwab, Gautam Dey, Flora Vincent

Figure extracted from Flori, *et al.* The image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

The Luminal Ring Protein C2CD3 Acts as a Radial In-to-Out Organizer of the Distal Centriole and Appendages
Eloïse Bertiaux, Vincent Louvel, Caitlyn L. McCafferty, Hugo van den Hoek, Umut Batman, Souradip Mukherjee, Lorène Bournonville, Olivier Mercey, Isabelle Mean, Adrian Müller, Philippe Van der Stappen, Garrison Buss, Jean Daraspe, Christel Genoud, Tim Stearns, Benjamin D. Engel, Virginie Hamel, Paul Guichard

Patched regulates cell cycle and tissue architecture in C. elegans gonad
Johanna Farley, Madeleine Schwalbe, Fredrik Forsberg, Aqilah Amran, Sandeep Gopal

Sensory stimuli and cilium trafficking defects trigger the release of ciliary extracellular vesicles from multiple ciliary locations
Teresa Lobo, Guus H. Haasnoot, Aleksandra Nawrocka, Christine W. Bruggeman, Adria Razzauti, Erwin J.G. Peterman, Patrick Laurent

Label-free classification of cell death pathways via holotomography-based deep learning framework
Minwook Kim, Wei Sun Park, Geon Kim, Sanggeun Oh, Jaephil Do, Juyeon Park, YongKeun Park

Figure extracted from Kim, *et al.* The image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Adhesion-derived condensates control component availability to regulate adhesion dynamics
Michal Dibus, Giray Enkavi, Megan Chastney, Ilpo Vattulainen, Johanna Ivaska

Electron tomography reveals mitochondrial network and cristae remodelling during cell differentiation in the human placenta
Siddharth Acharya, Eric Hanssen, Veronica B. Botha, Tia M. Smith, Sahan Jayatissa, Zlatan Trifunovic, Lucy A. Bartho, John E. Schjenken, Tu’uhevaha J. Kaitu’u-Lino, Anthony V. Perkins, Joanna L. James, Kirsty G. Pringle, James C. Bouwer, Roger Smith, Joshua J. Fisher

Figure extracted from Acharya, *et al.* The image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Phactr4 influences macrophage lamellipodial structure and dynamics through Arp2/3 complex and Ezrin regulation
Rohini Manickam, Jeremy D. Rotty

Parkin-dependent ubiquitination of TAX1BP1 directs efficient autophagic removal of defective mitochondria
Anna Lechado-Terradas, Bianca Lemke, Katharina I. Zittlau, Boris Macek, Philipp J. Kahle

Caveolin-1 dependent regulation of cell-matrix interphase in 3D collagen gels
Debasmita Mazumdar, Sujal Kataria, Gyanendra Prasad Panda, Atharva Kulkarni, Shivprasad Patil, Mamoni Dash, Nagaraj Balasubramanian

Neuronal migration induces DNA damage in developing brain
Zhejing Zhang, Andres Canela, Peilin Zou, Takahiro Furuta, Noriko Takeda, Takumi Kawaue, Naotaka Nakazawa, Mai Saeki, Masaki Utsunomiya, Junko Kurisu, Fumiyoshi Ishidate, Hiroyuki Sasanuma, Yusuke Kishi, Mineko Kengaku

Quantitative live imaging reveals PRICKLE1 controls junctional neural tube morphogenesis independent of Planar Cell Polarity
Jian Xiong Wang, Yanina D Alvarez, Siew Zhuan Tan, Samara N Ranie, Sam J Stehbens, Melanie White

Figure extracted from Wang, *et al.* The image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Super-resolution microscopy reveals distinct epigenetic states regulated by estrogen receptor activity
Tara Akhshi, Shengen Shawn Hu, Esme Wheeler, Christian Hellriegel, Douglas S Richardson, Nicole Cayting, Wangu Mvula, Buraq Ahmed, Rinath Jeselsohn, Chongzhi Zang, Myles Brown

Single-cell metabolic imaging and digital scoring of fat tissue remodeling by label-free metabolic microscopy
Myeongseop Kim, Constantin Berger, Alexander Wolf, Alina Peteranderl, Martin Klingenspor, Vasilis Ntziachristos, Yongguo Li, Miguel A. Pleitez

Analysis of RyR2 distribution in HEK293 cells and mouse cardiac myocytes using 3D MINFLUX microscopy
Alexander H Clowsley, Anna Meletiou, Radoslav Janicek, Alexandre F. E. Bokhobza, Evelina Lučinskaitė, Gabriele Bleuer, Isabelle Jansen, Peter P. Jones, William E. Louch, Christian Soeller

Figure extracted from Clowsley, *et al.* The image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Divergent organelle allocation in the evolution of sperm gigantism revealed from subcellular quantification of nematode sperm with electron microscopy
Rebecca Schalkowski, Asher D. Cutter

Figure extracted from Schalkowski, *et al.* The image is made available under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 International license.

Instant fluorescence lifetime imaging microscopy reveals mechano-metabolic reprogramming of stromal cells in breast cancer peritumoral microenvironments
Julian Najera, Hao Chen, Bianca Batista, Frank Ketchum, Aktar Ali, Pinar Zorlutuna, Scott Howard, Meenal Datta

Population-level morphological analysis of paired CO2- and odor-sensing olfactory neurons in D. melanogaster via volume electron microscopy
Jonathan Choy, Shadi Charara, Kalyani Cauwenberghs, Quintyn McKaughan, Keun-Young Kim, Mark H. Ellisman, Chih-Ying Su

Figure extracted from Choy, *et al.* The image is made available under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 International license.

Transient binding facilitates super-resolution imaging of functional amyloid fibrils on living bacteria
Daniel J. Foust, Divya Kolli, Kailyn Jessel, Zeyang Hu, Matthew R. Chapman, Julie S. Biteen

An ancient plant symbiotic fungus with distinct features identified through advanced fluorescence and Raman imaging
Christine Strullu-Derrien, Raymond Wightman, Liam Patrick McDonnell, Gareth Evans, Frédéric Fercoq, Paul Kenrick, Andrea C. Ferrari, Sebastian Schornack

Figure extracted from Strullu-Derrien, *et al.* The image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Loss of CHMP2A implicates an ordered assembly of ESCRT-III proteins during cytokinetic abscission
Nikita Kamenetsky, Dikla Nachmias, Suman Khan, Ori Avinoam, Itay Hazan, Alexander Upcher, Natalie Elia

Ultrastructural analysis of synapses after induction of spike-timing-dependent plasticity
Rui Wang, Michaela Schweizer, Margarita Anisimova, Christine E. Gee, Thomas G. Oertner

Actin conformation dynamics precede force generation in cytotoxic T lymphocytes
Adam M Rochussen, Aybaran O Kebabci, Alex K Winkel, Kristian Franze, Daniel A Fletcher, Gillian M Griffiths, Anna H Lippert

Figure extracted from Rochussen, *et al.* The image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Developmental coordination of mitochondrial dynamics and membrane remodeling drives organelle morphogenesis
H Aravind, Vivek Kumar, Manish Jaiswal

Depletion of endomembrane reservoirs drives phagocytic appetite exhaustion in macrophages
Aaron Fountain, Mélanie Mansat, Tracy Lackraj, Maria C. Gimenez, Serene Moussaoui, Maya Ezzo, Sierra Soffiaturo, Elijah Urdaneta, Munira B. Verdawala, Karen Fung, Charlene Lancaster, Elliott Somerville, Boris Hinz, Mauricio R. Terebiznik, Roberto J. Botelho

Ultrafast endocytosis in mouse cortical inhibitory synapses
Chelsy R. Eddings, Shigeki Watanabe

Figure extracted from Eddings, *et al.* The image is made available under a CC-BY 4.0 International license.

Long-range actin-driven endosymbiont mobility in a deep-diverging bilaterian
Grace Zhong, Gaëlle Toullec, Pierre-Henri Jouneau, Johan Decelle, Manu Prakash

Figure extracted from Zhong, *et al.* The image is made available under a CC-BY-NC 4.0 International license.

Subcellular reorganization upon phage infection reveals stepwise assembly of viral particles from membrane-associated precursors
Simon Corroyer-Dulmont, Audrey Labarde, Vojtěch Pražák, Lia Godinho, Chloé Masson, Pierre Legrand, Kay Grünewald, Paulo Tavares, Emmanuelle R.J. Quemin

Endoplasmic reticulum-anchored nonstructural proteins drive human astrovirus replication organelle formation
Brooke Bengert, Samaneh Mehri, Madeline Holliday, Nicholas J Lennemann

GABA-induced Ca2+ signaling in the primary cilium of neurons
Gonzalo Sanchez, Moa Södergren, Devendra Kumar Maurya, Alfhild Grönbladh, Maria Lindskog, Olof Idevall-Hagren

The Molecular Architecture of Somatic Spines of the Lateral Septum
Daniela Hacker, Erich Weisheim, Michaela Schweizer, Undine Schneeweiß, Michael Brecht, Marina Mikhaylova

Morphology and ultrastructure of pharyngeal sense organs of Drosophila larvae
Vincent Richter, Tilman Triphan, Albert Cardona, Andreas S. Thum