Fluorescence and fluorescence microscopy

The concept of specific cellular antigen staining by use of an immunofluorescent technique was introduced by AH COONS and co-workers about 60 years ago. Fluorescent probes are efficient tools and enable the detection of particular components in complex structures of organs including live cells. Under the condition of specific molecular interactions, fluorochrome labeled ligands allow the selective localization of cell compounds including antigens, nucleic acid structures or other molecules. Fluorescent techniques are especially useful to localize the intraand extracellular position of biomarkers in the course of gene expression, during cytoplasmic synthesis and migration. The method can be equally applied to follow changes of their localization as response to a defined stimulus and to observe relative distributions of molecules with respect to their dependency from each other.