From the beginnings to multidimensional light and electron microscopy of virus morphogenesis

Abstract

Individual functional viral morphogenesis events are often dynamic, short, and infrequent and might be obscured by other pathways and dead-end products. Volumetric live cell imaging has become an essential tool for studying viral morphogenesis events. It allows following entire dynamic processes while providing functional evidence that the imaged process is involved in viral production. Moreover, it allows to capture many individual events and allows quantitative analysis. Finally, the correlation of volumetric live-cell data with volumetric electron microscopy (EM) can provide crucial insights into the ultrastructure and mechanisms of viral morphogenesis events. Here, we provide an overview and discussion of suitable imaging methods for volumetric correlative imaging of viral morphogenesis and frame them in a historical summary of their development.

Keywords: 3D-CLEM; 3D-EM; 4D imaging; LLSM; Light sheet; Microscopy; Morphogenesis; SBF-SEM; Virology; Viruses; Volume EM.