Microscopy preprints – applications in biology

Posted by FocalPlane, on 19 September 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.

Microtubule architecture connects AMOT stability to YAP/TAZ mechanotransduction and Hippo signaling
Giada Vanni, Anna Citron, Ambela Suli, Paolo Contessotto, Robin Caire, Alessandro Gandin, Giovanna Mantovan, Francesca Zanconato, Giovanna Brusatin, Michele Di Palma, Elisa Peirano, Lisa Sofia Pozzer, Carlo Jr. Albanese, Roberto A. Steiner, Michelangelo Cordenonsi, Tito Panciera, Stefano Piccolo

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

Dynamic polarization of heparan sulfate proteoglycans is involved in planar cell polarity and localization of endogenous Wnt11 during vertebrate neural tube formation
Minako Suzuki, Ritsuko Takada, Tomoe Kobayashi, Makoto Matsuyama, Shinji Takada, Yusuke Mii

Emergence of cell polarity by reciprocal interactions between Wnt and core PCP components
Yusuke Mii, Minako Suzuki, Hiroshi Koyama, Kei Nakayama, Ritsuko Takada, Tomoe Kobayashi, Motosuke Tsutsumi, Tomomi Nemoto, Makoto Matsuyama, Toshihiko Fujimori, Shinji Takada

Mechanical conditions preventing live cell extrusion during primary neurulation in amniotes
Santiago A. Bosch Roascio, Julio A. Hernández, Flavio R. Zolessi

New clues about ribosome hibernation in microsporidia revealed by cryo-electron tomography
Mathew McLaren, Rebecca Conners, Michail N. Isupov, Vicki A. M. Gold, Bryony A. P. Williams, Bertram Daum

A keratin bundling transition uncages the nucleus in stretched epithelia
Tom Golde, Marco Pensalfini, Nimesh Chahare, Pere Roca-Cusachs, Gerhard Wiche, Guillaume T. Charras, Marino Arroyo, Xavier Trepat

Adaptor protein complex 2 (AP2) participates in biogenesis and homeostasis of myelin sheaths in the central nervous system
Sophie B. Siems, Ramona B. Jung, Olaf Jahn, Martin Meschkat, Susann Michanski, Nikola Łukasik, Sophie Hümmert, Andrew O. Sasmita, Wiebke Möbius, Fritz Benseler, Nils Brose, Eva-Maria Krämer-Albers, Volker Haucke, Klaus-Armin Nave, Hauke B. Werner

Mitochondrial organization in the developing proximal tubule is controlled by LRRK2
Mohsina Anjum Khan, Kyle Bond, Elyse Grilli, Daniel Cameron, Liyang Zhao, Sunder Sims-Lucas, Andrew P. McMahon, Thomas J. Carroll, Leif Oxburgh

Mechanical forces stimulate Golgi export
Chandini Bhaskar Naidu, Javier Vera Lillo, Sabine Bardin, Anabel-Lise Le Roux, Nicolas Mateos, Jessica Angulo-Capel, Adam Wolowczyk, Pere Roca-Cusachs, Maria F. Garcia-Parajo, Franck Perez, Bruno Goud, Jean-Baptiste Manneville, Stéphanie Miserey, Felix Campelo

The axonal ER couples translation and secretion machineries for local delivery of axonal transmembrane proteins to promote axonal development
Ha H. Nguyen, Noortje Kersten, Chun Hei Li, Huey de Jong, Tanuj Arora, Themistoklis Liolios, Dan T. M. Nguyen, Maarten P. Bebelman, Maarten Altelaar, Max Koppers, Ginny G. Farías

Mechanical Cues Regulate Cargo Sorting and Export at the Golgi
Greta Serafino, Stefania Forciniti, Edoardo Scarpa, Antonio Ranieri, Lucia Santorelli, Gabriella De Blasi, Sara Costantini, Eunjoo Jun Lee, Antonio Galeone, Alessia Calcagnì, Marinella Pirozzi, Loretta L. del Mercato, Rossella Venditti, Giovanni D’Angelo, Seetharaman Parashuraman, Tiziano Verri, Giuseppe Gigli, Elizabeth S. Sztul, Paolo Grumati, Loris Rizzello, Domenico Russo, Riccardo Rizzo

Sequoia affects Drosophila central nervous system development by regulating axonal extension and guidance
Noor Al-Hajri, Mar Alujas, Sofia Araújo, Guy Tear

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

Non-synaptic exocytosis along the axon shaft and its regulation by the submembrane periodic skeleton
Theresa Wiesner, Christopher Louis Parperis, Fanny Boroni-Rueda, Nicolas Jullien, Afonso Mendes, Léa Marie, Louisa Mezache, Marie-Jeanne Papandréou, Ricardo Henriques, Christophe Leterrier

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

Kinesin-induced buckling reveals the limits of microtubule self-repair
Shweta Nandakumar, Jonas Bosche, Mirko Wieczorek, Constantin Matteo Albrecht, Belinda König, Mona Grünewald, Ludger Santen, Stefan Diez, Reza Shaebani, Laura Schaedel

Perfect imperfections: seeking molecular and cellular asymmetries in the mouse brain
D.J. Houwing, Meng-Yun Wang, Andrew Silberfeld, Josephus A. van Hulten, Lukas Lütje, Judith R. Homberg, Simon E. Fisher, Joanes Grandjean, Clyde Francks

ECM-stiffness mediated persistent fibroblast activation requires integrin and formin dependent chromatin remodeling
Swathi Packirisamy, Oscar Andre, Zhimeng Fan, Pontus Nordenfelt, Vinay Shankar Swaminathan

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

De novo Golgi biogenesis requires coordinated transactivation of a Golgi regulon
Francesca Forno, Domenico Abete, Elena Polishchuk, Xabier Bujanda Cundin, Fioranna Renda, Roberta Crispino, Josephine Salzano, Raffaella Petruzzelli, Rossella De Cegli, Martina Sofia, Nicolina Cristina Sorrentino, Lorenzo Vaccaro, Davide Cacchiarelli, Juul Verbakel, Jan De Boer, Bruno Goud, Alexey Khodjakov, Franck Perez, Roman Polishchuk

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

Structural dynamics of mitochondrial ATP synthase in Chlamydomonas reinhardtii revealed by in situ CryoET
Emily Capper, Muyuan Chen

Rapid apical actin filament turnover is required for non-centrosomal microtubule organization in epithelium
Arathi Preeth Babu, Sachin Muralidharan, Konstantin Kogan, Tommi Kotila, Jaakko Mattila, Minna Poukkula

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

The Kinesin-3 KIF1A Functions as a Diligent Worker during Axonal Transport
Jesse Cisneros Solis, T. Lynne Blasius, Kristen J. Verhey

Integrins pattern the Drosophila embryonic neuroepithelium by influencing progenitor morphodynamics, division and position
Lamiya Dohadwala, Anupriya Garg, Maithreyi Narasimha

STED/AFM as a tool to investigate mechanical and adhesive properties of migrating keratinocytes
Mariya Y. Radeva, Jens Waschke, Michael Fuchs

Mechanical context defines integrin requirement for maintaining epithelia architecture
Lourdes Rincón-Ortega, Cecilia H. Fernández-Espartero, Isabel M. Palacios, Acaimo González-Reyes, María D. Martín-Bermudo

Tissue geometry and mechanochemical feedback initiate rotational migration in Drosophila
Sierra Schwabach, Sreejith Santhosh, Audrey Miller Williams, Maureen Cetera, Mattia Serra, Sally Horne-Badovinac

Microtubule organization and molecular architecture of ciliary basal bodies in multiciliated airway cells
Emma J. van Grinsven, Eugene A. Katrukha, Karen B. van den Anker, Fangrui Chen, Jeffrey M. Beekman, Lukas C. Kapitein, Anna Akhmanova

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

Persistent contacts between Climp63 and microtubules cause mitotic defects and nuclear fragmentation
Jelmi uit de Bos, Ulrike Kutay

Super-Resolution Imaging Reveals Stretch-Induced Architectural Rearrangement of Desmoplakin in Desmosomes
Leslie D. Seeley, Collin M. Ainslie, Mary Kathryn Sewell-Loftin, Alexa L. Mattheyses

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

Characterization of membrane structures regulating primary ciliogenesis by quantitative isotropic ultrastructure imaging
Quanlong Lu, Huijie Zhao, Ziam Khan, Adam Harned, Erina Kamiya, Valentin Magidson, Abhi Senthilkumar, Sumeth Perera, Kedar Narayan, Christopher J. Westlake

The ancient metazoan cytoplasmic intermediate filament protein, Cilin, shapes cilia arrangement and tissue architecture
Stanislav Kremnyov, Nadezhda Rimskaya-Korsakova, Tatiana Lebedeva, Alena Kizenko, Lars Hering, Georg Mayer, Carl-Philipp Heisenberg, Andreas Hejnol

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

Spatiotemporal control of cortical centrin patterning by regionalized Sfi1 family scaffolding proteins in Stentor coeruleus
Connie Yan, Niklas Steube, Gautam Dey, Wallace F. Marshall

Label-free microscopy enables high-throughput identification of genes controlling biofilm development
M. R. Pratyush, Jojo A. Prentice, Rory A. Eutsey, Irina Mikheyeva, N. Luisa Hiller, Andrew A. Bridges

Combined TIRF and 3D Super-Resolution Microscopy for Nanoscopic Spatiotemporal Characterization of Adhesion Molecules on Microvilli
Abdullah Alghamdi, Mansour M. Aldehaiman, Maged F. Serag, Shuho Nozue, Ioana-Andreea Ciocanaru, Jasmeen S. Merzaban, Satoshi Habuchi

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

Single-molecule localization microscopy reveals the molecular organization of endogenous membrane receptors
Patrick Eiring, Maximilian J. Steinhardt, Nele Bauer, Cornelia Vogt, Umair Munawar, Seungbin Han, Thomas Nerreter, Hermann Einsele, K. Martin Kortüm, Sören Doose, Markus Sauer

Super-resolution microscopy of alpha-synuclein aggregates in brain samples indicates a subset of cells have disrupted protein homeostasis
Emre Fertan, John Danial, Stephen Neame, Georg Meisl, Jeff Y.L. Lam, Melanie Burke, Zengje Xia, Yunzhao Wu, Ben Powney, Yoichi Imaizumi, Annelies Quaegebeur, James Staddon, David Klenerman

Super-resolution Fluorescence Microscopy Reveals Densely Packed EboV Membrane Glycoprotein Clusters in the Cell Plasma-membrane During Ebola Infection
Partha Pratim Mondal, Jiby M Varghese, Aravinth S, Neeraj Pant, Shouvik Saha

Functionally Essential and Structurally Diverse: Insights into the zebrafish Left-Right Organizer’s Cilia via Optogenetic IFT88 Perturbation and Volume Electron Microscopy
Favour Ononiwu, Melissa Mikolaj, Christopher Dell, Abdalla Wael Shamil, Kedar Narayan, Heidi Hehnly

Cryo-electron tomography reveals lineage-specific replication features of Zika virus
Yen-Chi Chiu, Jean Daraspe, Marco P. Alves, Christel Genoud, David Baud, Miloš Stojanov

3D MINFLUX combined with DNA-PAINT resolves the arrangement of Bassoon at active zones
Florelle Domart, Evelyn Garlick, Isabelle Jansen, Maria Augusta do Rego Barros Fernandes Lima, Thomas Dresbach

Cryo-SEM Reveals Native Architecture and Matrix Complexity in P. aeruginosa Biofilms
Goodness O. Osondu-Chuka, Stephan Schandl, Guruprakash Subbiahdoss, Aleksandr Ovsianikov, Olivier Guillaume, Erik Reimhult

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

Intravital Two-Photon Imaging of Touch Sensory Axon Morphology in Mouse Skin
Sydney Kong, Emily Barnes, Gautham Chelliah, Shan Meltzer

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

Somatic function of the Argonaute protein Aubergine is essential for neuromuscular development and function in Drosophila
Peter M’Angale, Devyn Oliver, Gimena Alegre, Jasmine Graslie, Angelina Tran, Alia Ohira, Max Zinter, Anna Malinkevich, Travis Thomson

Mitochondria structurally remodel near synapses to fuel the sustained energy demands of plasticity
Monil Shah, Ilika Ghosh, Luca Pishos, Valentina Villani, Tristano Pancani, Ryohei Yasuda, Chao Sun, Naomi Kamasawa, Vidhya Rangaraju

The actomyosin cortex controls t-tubule remodeling in muscle
Ana Raquel Pereira, Ana da Rosa Soares, Silvia Di Francescantonio, Tianyang Liu, Filomena A. Carvalho, Josie Liane Ferreira, Graciano Leal, Inês Faleiro, Naoko Kogata, Nuno C. Santos, Michael Way, Carolyn A. Moores, Edgar R. Gomes

ICP1 bacteriophage treatment antagonizes colonization of the zebrafish larval intestine by Vibrio cholerae
Adam Sidi Mabrouk, Jamie S. Depelteau, Chiara Foini, Annabel Kempff, Sebastiaan Jonker, Susanne Brenzinger, Ronald Limpens, Manuel Majrouh, Annemarie H. Meijer, Ariane Briegel

Centrosome Softening As A Mechanical Adaptation For Mitosis
Júlia Garcia-Baucells, Carlo Bevilacqua, Manuel Rufin, Cornelia Rumpf-Kienzl, Alexandra Zampetaki, Orestis G. Andriotis, Philipp J. Thurner, Robert Prevedel, Sebastian Fürthauer, Alexander Dammermann

A scalable human-zebrafish xenotransplantation model reveals gastrosome-mediated processing of dying neurons by human microglia
Ambra Villani, Jana Wittmann, Tamara Wyss, Izaskun Mallona Gonzalez, Irene Santisteban Ortiz, Nathalie Tichy, Monique Pena, Ayush Aditya Pal, Darren Gilmour, Simon T. Schafer, Francesca Peri

Shear Stress Induces Concentration Gradient Distributions of Membrane Proteins in Live Cells
Sawako Yamashiro, Misato Nomura, Nils Chapin, Sreeja Sasidharan, Louis Elverston, Leah Knepper, Damien Thévenin, Naoki Watanabe, Aurelia R. Honerkamp-Smith

Clathrin-coated vesicles are targeted for selective autophagy during osmotic stress.
jonathan dragwidge, Matthieu Buridan, Julia Kraus, Thibault Kosuth, Clement Chambaud, Lysiane Brocard, Klaas Yperman, Evelien Mylle, Michael Vandorpe, Dominique Eeckhout, Geert De Jaeger, Roman Pleskot, Amelie Bernard, Daniel Van Damme

Endothelial tight junctions and cell-matrix adhesions reciprocally control blood-brain barrier integrity
Gergő Porkoláb, Lucien Lemaitre, Beatrix Magyaródi, Imola Rajmon, Tibor Novák, Bálint H. Kovács, Ilona Gróf, Anikó Szecskó, Kinga Dóra Kovács, Enikő Farkas, Boglárka Kovács, Inna Székács, Attila G. Végh, Yosuke Hashimoto, Chris Greene, Adam McGlinchey, Maxime Culot, David C. Henshall, Kieron J. Sweeney, Donncha F. O’Brien, Szilvia Veszelka, Miklós Erdélyi, Matthew Campbell, Róbert Horváth, Mária A. Deli

Spatial microenvironments tune immune response dynamics in the Drosophila larval fat body
Brandon H. Schlomann, Ting-Wei Pai, Jazmin Sandhu, Genesis Ferrer Imbert, Thomas G.W. Graham, Hernan G. Garcia

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

Imaging cellular activity simultaneously across all organs of a vertebrate reveals body-wide circuits
Virginia M. S. Ruetten, Wei Zheng, Igor Siwanowicz, Brett D. Mensh, Mark Eddison, Amy Hu, Yunfeng Chi, Andrew L. Lemire, Caiying Guo, Mykola Kadobianskyi, Marc Renz, Sara Lelek-Greskovic, Yisheng He, Kari Close, Gudrun Ihrke, Aparna Dev, Alyson Petruncio, Yinan Wan, Florian Engert, Mark C. Fishman, Benjamin Judkewitz, Mikail Rubinov, Philipp J. Keller, Chie Satou, Guoqiang Yu, Paul W. Tillberg, Maneesh Sahani, Misha B. Ahrens