Practice question

STORM excels with fixed samples because long acquisition of 10,000-50,000 frames needed for complete super-resolved reconstruction tolerates immobilization and benefits from chemical fixation preserving nanoscale organization. Chemical crosslinking prevents motion blur during localization, while oxygen-scavenging buffers enhance dye blinking for precise centroid fitting. Unlike DIC providing contrast for live unstained cells, TIRF limited to surface, or SEM requiring dehydration, STORM provides highest precision molecular maps of fixed cytoskeleton, nuclear pores, and adhesion complexes. Its requirement for drift correction and photoswitching makes fixation advantageous for stable localization-based imaging.