Enhanced resolution through thick tissue with structured illumination and adaptive optics

Structured illumination microscopy provides twice the linear resolution of conventional fluorescence microscopy, but in thick samples, aberrations degrade the performance and limit the resolution. Here, we demonstrate structured illumination microscopy through 35 μm of tissue using adaptive optics (AO) to correct aberrations resulting in images with a resolution of 140 nm. We report a 60% minimum improvement in the signal-to-noise ratio of the structured illumination reconstruction through thick tissue by correction with AO.