Sabrina Zappone

Istituto Italiano di Tecnologia | IIT · Center for Life Nano Science

Stress granules (SG) are part of a cellular protection mechanism where untranslated messenger RNAs and RNA-binding proteins are stored upon conditions of cellular stress. Compositional variations due to qualitative or quantitative protein changes can disrupt their functionality and alter their structure. This is the case of different forms of amyot...

Image Scanning Microscopy (ISM) enables good signal-to-noise ratio (SNR), super-resolution and high information content imaging by leveraging array detection in a laser-scanning architecture. However, the SNR is still limited by the size of the detector, which is conventionally small to avoid collecting out-of-focus light. Nonetheless, the ISM data...

The accumulation of alpha-synuclein (aS) protein aggregates in cells is a typical hallmark of several neurodegenerative diseases. Recent studies have shown that the aberrant transition of monomeric aS into solid-like aggregates can occur via an intermediate liquid-like state, where the protein partitions between dense and dilute phases. Although aS...

Fast and sensitive detector arrays enable image scanning microscopy (ISM), overcoming the trade-off between spatial resolution and signal-to-noise ratio (SNR) typical of confocal microscopy. However, current ISM approaches cannot provide optical sectioning and fail with thick samples, unless the size of the detector is limited. Thus, another trade-...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease due to gradual motoneurons (MN) degeneration. Among the processes associated to ALS pathogenesis, there is the formation of cytoplasmic inclusions produced by aggregation of mutant proteins, among which the RNA binding protein FUS. Here we show that, in neuronal cells an...

Biomolecular condensates serve as membrane-less compartments within cells, concentrating proteins and nucleic acids to facilitate precise spatial and temporal orchestration of various biological processes. The diversity of these processes and the substantial variability in condensate characteristics present a formidable challenge for quantifying th...

Amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS) is a progressive neurodegenerative disease due to gradual motorneurons (MN) degeneration1. Among the processes associated to ALS pathogenesis, there is the formation of cytoplasmic inclusions produced by mutant protein aggregation, among which the RNA binding protein FUS2. In this work we show that such inclusion...

Stress Granules (SG) formation is a cellular protection mechanism in harmful conditions, constituting a storage for untranslated mRNAs and RNA-binding proteins (RBPs); however, these condensates can turn into pathological aggregates, that in neurons are related to the onset of neurodegenerative diseases, like Amyotrophic Lateral Sclerosis (ALS). Mu...

Fluorescence confocal laser-scanning microscopy (LSM) is one of the most popular tools for life science research. This popularity is expected to grow thanks to single-photon array detectors tailored for LSM. These detectors offer unique single-photon spatiotemporal information, opening new perspectives for gentle and quantitative super-resolution i...

Quantitative fluorescence microscopy is experiencing an important revolution thanks to single-photon array detectors. These detectors provide users with so far inaccessible specimen information: The distribution of the specimen's fluorescence emission at single-photon level and high spatiotemporal sampling. In laser-scanning microscopy, this photon...

Fluorescence laser-scanning microscopy (LSM) is experiencing a revolution thanks to new single-photon (SP) array detectors, which give access to an entirely new set of single-photon information. Together with the blooming of new SP LSM techniques and the development of tailored SP array detectors, there is a growing need for (i) DAQ systems capable...

The single-photon timing and sensitivity performance and the imaging ability of asynchronous-readout single-photon avalanche diode (SPAD) array detectors have opened up enormous perspectives in fluorescence (lifetime) laser scanning microscopy (FLSM), such as super-resolution image scanning microscopy and high-information content fluorescence fluct...