Deep learning-enhanced single-shot triorganelle STED-FLIM imaging of lipid dynamics in living cells.

Authors

Lu Gao, Beibei Gao, Wei Ge, Tianze Sun, Wenshuang Liang, Li Jiang, Linyong Zhu, Fu Wang

Published in

Science advances. Volume 12. Issue 40. Pages eaeh3416. Oct 02, 2026. Epub Sep 30, 2026.

Abstract

Lipid homeostasis is orchestrated by rapid exchange and remodeling across the endoplasmic reticulum (ER), lipid droplets (LDs), and mitochondria. However, live-cell visualization of this triorganelle network remains limited by subdiffraction structures, multiplexed labeling burden, and the ambiguity of intensity-only readouts. Here, we introduce a single-shot stimulated emission depletion-fluorescence lifetime imaging (STED-FLIM) workflow that combines Nile Red analogs with deep learning-based demultiplexing to generate compartment-resolved maps of lipid-organelle organization and dynamics. By combining the STED-resolved nanoscale ultrastructure with lifetime-encoded microenvironmental contrast, our approach separates ER, LDs, and mitochondria from a single acquisition and enables automated tricompartment quantification using a lightweight VGG16-UNet segmentation model. This platform captures coordinated remodeling across the ER-LD-mitochondria axis during lipid stress, including ferroptosis- and apoptosis-associated transitions, while simultaneously reporting nanoscale organization and microenvironmental shifts. Together, this strategy provides a practical route to high-spatiotemporal-resolution, lifetime-encoded multiorganelle lipid imaging in living cells.

PMID:
42814825
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 01 Oct 2026.

Read full publication at:
Please sign in to see all details.

Stats

1-terrible, 9-excellent. How would you rate this publication? Sign in in to submit your rating.

Post a comment

You need to be signed in to post comments. You can sign in here.

Comments

There are no comments yet.