Label-free imaging and analysis of subcellular parts of a living diatom cylindrotheca sp. using optical diffraction tomography

Optical diffraction tomography is an emerging label-free microscopic technique with its capability of label-free, quantitative, and rapid imaging of biological samples. In this work, we present the imaging and analysis of a living diatom Cylindrotheca • Subcellular parts of a living diatom cell was well visualized by digital holographic microscope. • Subcellular parts could be identified as differences of refractive indexes. • The observation was achieved without any pre-treatment of the living cell.