Application of super-resolution fluorescence microscopy in hematologic malignancies

Hematologic malignancies are one of the most common malignant tumors caused by the clonal proliferation and differentiation of hematopoietic and lymphoid stem cells. The examination of bone marrow cells combined with immunodeficiency typing is of great significance to the diagnostic type, treatment and prognosis of hematologic malignancies. Super-resolution fluorescence microscopy (SRM) is a special kind of optical microscopy technology, which breaks the resolution limit and was awarded the Nobel Prize in Chemistry in 2014. With the development of SRM, many related technologies have been applied to the diagnosis and treatment of clinical diseases. It was reported that a major type of SRM technique, single molecule localization microscopy (SMLM), is more sensitive than flow cytometry (FC) in detecting cell membrane antigens' expression, thus enabling better chances in detecting antigens on hematopoietic cells than traditional analytic tools. Furthermore, SRM may be applied to clinical pathology and may guide precision medicine and personalized medicine for clone hematopoietic cell diseases. In this paper, we mainly discuss the application of SRM in clone hematological malignancies.