Although ileocolonoscopy is the gold standard for diagnosis of inflammatory bowel disease and is useful for assessing the disease severity in the colon and terminal ileum, several alternative diagnostic techniques have been developed recently. For ulcerative colitis (UC), magnification colonoscopy, endocytoscopy, and confocal laser endomicroscopy enable assessment of histological inflammation without the need for biopsy. Capsule endoscopy is useful for detection of small intestinal and colonic lesions in both female and male patients. For UC, capsule endoscopy may be useful for evaluating colonic inflammation in patients with a previous poor colonoscopy experience, while it should be used only in Crohn's disease (CD) patients with unexplained symptoms when other examinations are negative. Magnetic resonance enterography (MRE) is particularly useful for detecting transmural inflammation, stenosis, and extraintestinal lesions, including abscesses and fistulas. MRE is also useful when evaluating small and large intestinal lesions, even in cases with severe strictures in which full evaluation of the small bowel would be virtually impossible using other devices. Therefore, the appropriate diagnostic devices for detecting CD lesions in the small and large intestine should be used.
Colitis, Ulcerative/*diagnosis ; Crohn Disease/*diagnosis ; Cytodiagnosis/trends ; Diagnostic Imaging/*trends ; Endoscopy, Gastrointestinal/*trends ; Humans ; Magnetic Resonance Imaging/trends ; Microscopy, Confocal/trends ; Predictive Value of Tests ; Prognosis ; Severity of Illness Index

Single molecule detection is a technology of studying biomolecules with high spatial and temporal resolution. By exploiting recent technical advances, we are able to observe, detect, even manipulate individual molecules and study their conformational changes and dynamic behaviors. New information can be obtained from the single molecule research, which is otherwise hidden or averaged out. In recent years, the development of single molecule detection techniques has opened up a new era of life science. In this review, we introduce the advances of the techniques for detecting single molecules in cell biology and review the development of single molecule detection in living cells.
Animals ; Biotechnology ; trends ; Cell Physiological Phenomena ; Humans ; Microscopy, Confocal ; methods ; Microscopy, Fluorescence ; instrumentation ; methods ; Molecular Biology ; instrumentation ; methods ; Nanotechnology ; instrumentation ; methods ; Proteins ; analysis ; ultrastructure