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Tillberg Lab / Publications
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17 Publications

Showing 11-17 of 17 results
06/01/23 | Glutamate indicators with improved activation kinetics and localization for imaging synaptic transmission.
Aggarwal A, Liu R, Chen Y, Ralowicz AJ, Bergerson SJ, Tomaska F, Mohar B, Hanson TL, Hasseman JP, Reep D, Tsegaye G, Yao P, Ji X, Kloos M, Walpita D, Patel R, Mohr MA, Tillberg PW, GENIE Project Team , Looger LL, Marvin JS, Hoppa MB, Konnerth A, Kleinfeld D, Schreiter ER, Podgorski K
Nature Methods. 2023 Jun 01;20(6):. doi: 10.1038/s41592-023-01863-6

The fluorescent glutamate indicator iGluSnFR enables imaging of neurotransmission with genetic and molecular specificity. However, existing iGluSnFR variants exhibit low in vivo signal-to-noise ratios, saturating activation kinetics and exclusion from postsynaptic densities. Using a multiassay screen in bacteria, soluble protein and cultured neurons, we generated variants with improved signal-to-noise ratios and kinetics. We developed surface display constructs that improve iGluSnFR's nanoscopic localization to postsynapses. The resulting indicator iGluSnFR3 exhibits rapid nonsaturating activation kinetics and reports synaptic glutamate release with decreased saturation and increased specificity versus extrasynaptic signals in cultured neurons. Simultaneous imaging and electrophysiology at individual boutons in mouse visual cortex showed that iGluSnFR3 transients report single action potentials with high specificity. In vibrissal sensory cortex layer 4, we used iGluSnFR3 to characterize distinct patterns of touch-evoked feedforward input from thalamocortical boutons and both feedforward and recurrent input onto L4 cortical neuron dendritic spines.

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01/20/23 | Multimodal mapping of cell types and projections in the central nucleus of the amygdala
Yuhan Wang , Sabine Krabbe , Mark Eddison , Fredrick E. Henry , Greg Fleishman , Andrew L. Lemire , Lihua Wang , Wyatt Korff , Paul W. Tillberg , Andreas Lüthi , Scott M. Sternson
eLife. 2023 Jan 20:. doi: 10.7554/eLife.84262

The central nucleus of the amygdala (CEA) is a brain region that integrates external and internal sensory information and executes innate and adaptive behaviors through distinct output pathways. Despite its complex functions, the diversity of molecularly defined neuronal types in the CEA and their contributions to major axonal projection targets have not been examined systematically. Here, we performed single-cell RNA-sequencing (scRNA-Seq) to classify molecularly defined cell types in the CEA and identified marker-genes to map the location of these neuronal types using expansion assisted iterative fluorescence in situ hybridization (EASI-FISH). We developed new methods to integrate EASI-FISH with 5-plex retrograde axonal labeling to determine the spatial, morphological, and connectivity properties of ∼30,000 molecularly defined CEA neurons. Our study revealed spatio-molecular organization of the CEA, with medial and lateral CEA associated with distinct cell families. We also found a long-range axon projection network from the CEA, where target regions receive inputs from multiple molecularly defined cell types. Axon collateralization was found primarily among projections to hindbrain targets, which are distinct from forebrain projections. This resource reports marker-gene combinations for molecularly defined cell types and axon-projection types, which will be useful for selective interrogation of these neuronal populations to study their contributions to the diverse functions of the CEA.

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05/28/21 | Protein-Retention Expansion Microscopy (ExM): Scalable and Convenient Super-Resolution Microscopy.
Tillberg P
Methods in Molecular Biology. 2021 May 28;2304:147-156. doi: 10.1007/978-1-0716-1402-0_7

Expansion microscopy (ExM) is a method to expand biological specimens ~fourfold in each dimension by embedding in a hyper-swellable gel material. The expansion is uniform across observable length scales, enabling imaging of structures previously too small to resolve. ExM is compatible with any microscope and does not require expensive materials or specialized software, offering effectively sub-diffraction-limited imaging capabilities to labs that are not equipped to use traditional super-resolution imaging methods. Expanded specimens are ~99% water, resulting in strongly reduced optical scattering and enabling imaging of sub-diffraction-limited structures throughout specimens up to several hundred microns in (pre-expansion) thickness.

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07/04/16 | Protein-retention expansion microscopy of cells and tissues labeled using standard fluorescent proteins and antibodies.
Tillberg P, Chen F, Piatkevich KD, Zhao Y, Yu CJ, English BP, Gao L, Martorell A, Suk H, Yoshida F, DeGennaro EM, Roossien DH, Gong G, Seneviratne U, Tannenbaum SR, Desimone R, Cai D, Boyden ES
Nature Biotechnology. 2016 Jul 4;34(9):987-92. doi: 10.1038/nbt.3625

Expansion microscopy (ExM) enables imaging of preserved specimens with nanoscale precision on diffraction-limited instead of specialized super-resolution microscopes. ExM works by physically separating fluorescent probes after anchoring them to a swellable gel. The first ExM method did not result in the retention of native proteins in the gel and relied on custom-made reagents that are not widely available. Here we describe protein retention ExM (proExM), a variant of ExM in which proteins are anchored to the swellable gel, allowing the use of conventional fluorescently labeled antibodies and streptavidin, and fluorescent proteins. We validated and demonstrated the utility of proExM for multicolor super-resolution (∼70 nm) imaging of cells and mammalian tissues on conventional microscopes.

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10/26/22 | Rapid reconstruction of neural circuits using tissue expansion and lattice light sheet microscopy
Joshua L. Lillvis , Hideo Otsuna , Xiaoyu Ding , Igor Pisarev , Takashi Kawase , Jennifer Colonell , Konrad Rokicki , Cristian Goina , Ruixuan Gao , Amy Hu , Kaiyu Wang , John Bogovic , Daniel E. Milkie , Edward S. Boyden , Stephan Saalfeld , Paul W. Tillberg , Barry J. Dickson
eLife. 2022 Oct 26:. doi: 10.7554/eLife.81248

Electron microscopy (EM) allows for the reconstruction of dense neuronal connectomes but suffers from low throughput, limiting its application to small numbers of reference specimens. We developed a protocol and analysis pipeline using tissue expansion and lattice light-sheet microscopy (ExLLSM) to rapidly reconstruct selected circuits across many samples with single synapse resolution and molecular contrast. We validate this approach in Drosophila, demonstrating that it yields synaptic counts similar to those obtained by EM, can be used to compare counts across sex and experience, and to correlate structural connectivity with functional connectivity. This approach fills a critical methodological gap in studying variability in the structure and function of neural circuits across individuals within and between species.

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06/20/23 | Ten-fold Robust Expansion Microscopy.
Damstra HG, Mohar B, Eddison M, Akhmanova A, Kapitein LC, Tillberg PW
Bio-Protocol. 2023 Jun 20;13(12):e4698. doi: 10.21769/BioProtoc.4698

Expansion microscopy (ExM) is a powerful technique to overcome the diffraction limit of light microscopy that can be applied in both tissues and cells. In ExM, samples are embedded in a swellable polymer gel to physically expand the sample and isotropically increase resolution in x, y, and z. By systematic exploration of the ExM recipe space, we developed a novel ExM method termed Ten-fold Robust Expansion Microscopy (TREx) that, as the original ExM method, requires no specialized equipment or procedures. TREx enables ten-fold expansion of both thick mouse brain tissue sections and cultured human cells, can be handled easily, and enables high-resolution subcellular imaging with a single expansion step. Furthermore, TREx can provide ultrastructural context to subcellular protein localization by combining antibody-stained samples with off-the-shelf small molecule stains for both total protein and membranes.

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02/18/22 | Visualizing cellular and tissue ultrastructure using Ten-fold Robust Expansion Microscopy (TREx)
Hugo G.J. Damstra , Boaz Mohar , Mark Eddison , Anna Akhmanova , Lukas C. Kapitein , Paul W. Tillberg
eLife. 2022 Feb 18:. doi: https://doi.org/10.1101/2021.02.03.428837

Expansion microscopy (ExM) is a powerful technique to overcome the diffraction limit of light microscopy that can be applied in both tissues and cells. In ExM, samples are embedded in a swellable polymer gel to physically expand the sample and isotropically increase resolution in x, y and z. The maximum resolution increase is limited by the expansion factor of the polymer gel, which is four-fold for the original ExM protocol. Variations on the original ExM method have been reported that allow for greater expansion factors, for example using iterative expansion, but at the cost of ease of adoption or versatility. Here, we systematically explore the ExM recipe space and present a novel method termed Ten-fold Robust Expansion Microscopy (TREx) that, like the original ExM method, requires no specialized equipment or procedures to carry out. We demonstrate that TREx gels expand ten-fold, can be handled easily, and can be applied to both thick tissue sections and cells enabling high-resolution subcellular imaging in a single expansion step. We show that applying TREx on antibody-stained samples can be combined with off-the-shelf small molecule stains for both total protein and membranes to provide ultrastructural context to subcellular protein localization.

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