SYBR Gold dye enables preferential labelling of mitochondrial nucleoids and their time-lapse imaging by structured illumination microscopy

Mitochondrial DNA molecules coated with proteins form compact particles called mitochondrial nucleoids. They are redistributed within mitochondrial network undergoing morphological changes. The straightforward technique to characterize nucleoids’ motions is fluorescence microscopy. Mitochondrial nucleoids are commonly labelled with fluorescent protein tags, which is not always feasible and was reported to cause artifacts. Organic DNA-binding dyes are free of these drawbacks, but they lack specificity to mitochondrial DNA. Here, considering physico-chemical properties of such dyes, we achieved preferential live-cell labelling of mitochondrial nucleoids by a nucleic acid staining dye SYBR Gold. It enabled time-lapse imaging of mitochondrial nucleoids by structured illumination microscopy and quantification of their motions.