Abstracts
Decoding membrane dynamics with quantitative and super-resolution microscopy
Francesca Bottanelli
Freie Universität Berlin, Membrane Trafficking, Thielallee 63, 14195 Berlin, Germany, francesca.bottanelli@fu-berlin.de
In the laboratory, we combine endogenous tagging with live-cell super-resolution STED microscopy to follow dynamic processes at the nanoscale and in their own unperturbed physiological cellular environment (Bottanelli et al., 2016, 2017, Wong-Dilworth et al., 2023). We have implemented a pipeline for the rapid generation of knock ins and generated a library of over 150 tagged proteins involved in membrane trafficking (Adarska et al., 2025), which can be used for dynamic nanoscale microscopy and for high sensitivity proximity biotinylation experiments (Stockhammer et al., 2024). The ability to explore cellular dynamics of an extensive collection of trafficking machinery at sub 50 nm resolution in an unperturbed cellular environment is revealing novel and unexplored sorting mechanisms. Our primary biological questions focus on the mechanisms underlying endosomal organelle biogenesis (Stockhmmer, Adarska et al., 2024) and on membrane reorganization processes that support immune function (Rodilla-Ramirez et al., 2025).