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I was happy to read this article in the latest issue of the journal 
"Methods" :

Visualizing single molecules interacting with nuclear pore complexes by 
narrow-field epifluorescence microscopy
Weidong Yanga and Siegfried M. Musse
doi:10.1016/j.ymeth.2006.06.002

I think I remember having read on this list that using an open pinhole 
with a confocal microscope will lead to a result worse than with a 
conventionnal epifluorescence setup. In this paper, the authors claim 
that using big pinholes ( some kind of very small field stop, ~400 µm) 
in the excitation path increases the S/N compared to regular 
epifluorescence. The S/N is further incereased by placing a 300 µm 
pinhole in the emission path. I wonder what are the theoretical basis of 
these observations ?

Christophe Leterrier

Ionic Channels and Neuronal Polarity Team :: Bénédicte Dargent
INSERM UMR 641
Neurobiology of Ionic Channels Lab :: Mike Seagar
Institut Jean Roche :: Université de la Méditerranée
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Telephone 04 91 69 89 30 :: Fax 04 91 09 05 06
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