Microscopy has gone hand in hand with the study of living systems since van Leeuwenhoek observed living microorganisms and cells in 1674 using his light microscope. A spectrum of dyes and probes now enable the localization of molecules of interest within living cells by fluorescence microscopy. With electron microscopy (EM), cellular ultrastructure has been revealed. Bridging these two modalities, correlated light microscopy and EM (CLEM) opens new avenues. Studies of protein dynamics with fluorescent proteins (FPs), which leave the investigator 'in the dark' concerning cellular context, can be followed by EM examination. Rare events can be preselected at the light microscopy level before EM analysis. Ongoing development-including of dedicated probes, integrated microscopes, large-scale and three-dimensional EM and super-resolution fluorescence microscopy-now paves the way for broad CLEM implementation in biology.

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Nanodiamonds containing fluorescent nitrogen-vacancy centers are increasingly attracting interest for use as a probe in biological microscopy. This interest stems from (i) strong resistance to photobleaching allowing prolonged fluorescence observation times; (ii) the possibility to excite fluorescence using a focused electron beam (cathodoluminescence; CL) for high-resolution localization; and (iii) the potential use for nanoscale sensing. For all these schemes, the development of versatile molecular labeling using relatively small diamonds is essential. Here, we show the direct targeting of a biological molecule with nanodiamonds as small as 70 nm using a streptavidin conjugation and standard antibody labelling approach. We also show internalization of 40 nm sized nanodiamonds. The fluorescence from the nanodiamonds survives osmium-fixation and plastic embedding making them suited for correlative light and electron microscopy. We show that CL can be observed from epon-embedded nanodiamonds, while surface-exposed nanoparticles also stand out in secondary electron (SE) signal due to the exceptionally high diamond SE yield. Finally, we demonstrate the magnetic read-out using fluorescence from diamonds prior to embedding. Thus, our results firmly establish nanodiamonds containing nitrogen-vacancy centers as unique, versatile probes for combining and correlating different types of microscopy, from fluorescence imaging and magnetometry to ultrastructural investigation using electron microscopy.

Autoimmune β-cell destruction leads to type 1 diabetes, but the pathophysiological mechanisms remain unclear. To help address this void, we created an open-access online repository, unprecedented in its size, composed of large-scale electron microscopy images ('nanotomy') of human pancreas tissue obtained from the Network for Pancreatic Organ donors with Diabetes (nPOD; www.nanotomy.org). Nanotomy allows analyses of complete donor islets with up to macromolecular resolution. Anomalies we found in type 1 diabetes included (i) an increase of 'intermediate cells' containing granules resembling those of exocrine zymogen and endocrine hormone secreting cells; and (ii) elevated presence of innate immune cells. These are our first results of mining the database and support recent findings that suggest that type 1 diabetes includes abnormalities in the exocrine pancreas that may induce endocrine cellular stress as a trigger for autoimmunity.

In this in vivo study the amount of fluoride present on and in human enamel was followed longitudinally for a period of 3 months. The fluoridating agents were an APF gel and the fluoridating lacquers Duraphat and Fluor Protector. The fluoride on the enamel (F_on, mainly as CaF₂) was determined by the Caslavska method. The fluoride in the enamel (F₂) was measured in five enamel layers removed by acid etching. 12 patients wore the treated enamel specimens and controls for periods of 1, 4 and 12 weeks before the Fon and F₂ determinations were made. The CaF₂ (or F_on) was lost in vivo in all three treatments at a rate of about 20 μg cm^-2 in the first week. Consequently, APF gel- and Duraphat-treated specimens lost nearly all CaF₂ in vivo in this period. The amount of CaF₂ present in the Fluor Protector case was noticeable up to 1 month. A second conclusion from this study is that the amount of acquired F^- (F₂ in a layer of 30 μm) following APF gel or Duraphat treatment was negligible after 1 week in vivo. A Fluor Protector treatment introduced an amount of acquired fluoride of 11, 14 and 15 μg cm^-2 after 1 4 or 12 weeks, respectively. This study shows that if sufficient CaF₂ is deposited on the enamel in vivo for a sufficiently long time, the amount of F∼ in the enamel can be increased significantly. Thirdly, despite the fact that during the in vivo experiments considerable amounts of CaF₂ were lost in the saliva, no measurable enrichment of control sound enamel resulted, not even in sound enamel specimens 3 mm from the treated blocks.

Cellular complexity is unraveled at nanometer resolution using electron microscopy (EM), but interpretation of macromolecular functionality is hampered by the difficulty in interpreting grey-scale images and the unidentified molecular content. We perform large-scale EM on mammalian tissue complemented with energy-dispersive X-ray analysis (EDX) to allow EM-data analysis based on elemental composition. Endogenous elements, labels (gold and cadmium-based nanoparticles) as well as stains are analyzed at ultrastructural resolution. This provides a wide palette of colors to paint the traditional grey-scale EM images for composition-based interpretation. Our proof-of-principle application of EM-EDX reveals that endocrine and exocrine vesicles exist in single cells in Islets of Langerhans. This highlights how elemental mapping reveals unbiased biomedical relevant information. Broad application of EM-EDX will further allow experimental analysis on large-scale tissue using endogenous elements, multiple stains, and multiple markers and thus brings nanometer-scale ‘color-EM’ as a promising tool to unravel molecular (de)regulation in biomedicine.

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Aims/hypothesis Pancreatic beta cells are subjected to exogenous damaging factors such as proinflammatory cytokines or excess glucose that can cause accumulation of damage-inducing reactive oxygen species during the pathogenesis of diabetes. We and others have shown that beta cell autophagy can reduce reactive oxygen species to protect against apoptosis. While impaired islet autophagy has been demonstrated in human type 2 diabetes, it is unknown if islet autophagy is perturbed in the pathogenesis of type 1 diabetes. We hypothesised that beta cell autophagy is dysfunctional in type 1 diabetes, and that there is a progressive loss during early diabetes development. Methods Pancreases were collected from chloroquine-injected and non-injected non-obese diabetes-resistant (NOR) and non-obese diabetic (NOD) mice. Age- and BMI-matched pancreas tissue sections from human organ donors (N = 34) were obtained from the Network for Pancreatic Organ Donors with Diabetes (nPOD). Tissue sections were stained with antibodies against proinsulin or insulin (beta cell markers), microtubule-associated protein 1 light chain 3 A/B (LC3A/B; autophagosome marker), lysosomal-associated membrane protein 1 (LAMP1; lysosome marker) and p62 (autophagy adaptor). Images collected on a scanning laser confocal microscope were analysed with CellProfiler and ImageJ. Secondary lysosomes and telolysosomes were assessed in electron micrographs of human pancreatic tissue sections (n = 12), and energy dispersive x-ray analysis was performed to assess distribution of elements (n = 5). Results We observed increased autophagosome numbers in islets of diabetic NOD mice (p = 0.008) and increased p62 in islets of both non-diabetic and diabetic NOD mice (p < 0.001) vs NOR mice. There was also a reduction in LC3–LAMP1 colocalisation in islets of diabetic NOD mice compared with both non-diabetic NOD (p < 0.001) and NOR mice (p < 0.001). Chloroquine elicited accumulation of autophagosomes in the islets of NOR (p = 0.003) and non-diabetic NOD mice (p < 0.001), but not in islets of diabetic NOD mice; and stimulated accumulation of p62 in NOR (p < 0.001), but not in NOD mice. We observed reduced LC3–LAMP1 colocalisation (p < 0.001) in residual beta cells of human donors with type 1 diabetes vs non-diabetic participants. We also observed reduced colocalisation of proinsulin with LAMP1 in donors with type 1 diabetes (p < 0.001). Electron microscopy also revealed accumulation of telolysosomes with nitrogen-dense rings in beta cells of autoantibody-positive donors (p = 0.002). Conclusions/interpretation We provide evidence of islet macroautophagy/crinophagy impairment in human type 1 diabetes. We also document accumulation of telolysosomes with peripheral nitrogen in beta cells of autoantibody-positive donors, demonstrating altered lysosome content that may be associated with lysosome dysfunction before clinical hyperglycaemia. Similar macroautophagy impairments are present in the NOD mouse model of type 1 diabetes. Graphical abstract