Label-free intracellular transport measured by spatial light interference microscopy
Abstract
We show that applying the Laplace operator to a speckle-free quantitative phase image reveals an unprecedented level of detail in cell structure, without the gradient artifacts associated with differential interference contrast microscopy, or photobleaching and phototoxicity limitations common in fluorescence microscopy. This method, referred to as Laplace phase microscopy, is an efficient tool for tracking vesicles and organelles in living cells. The principle is demonstrated by tracking organelles in cardiomyocytes and vesicles in neurites of hippocampal neurons, which to our knowledge are the first label-free diffusion measurements of the organelles in such cells.
- Publication:
-
Journal of Biomedical Optics
- Pub Date:
- February 2011
- DOI:
- 10.1117/1.3549204
- Bibcode:
- 2011JBO....16b6019W
- Keywords:
-
- biochemistry;
- biodiffusion;
- cell motility;
- fluorescence;
- Laplace equations;
- neurophysiology;
- optical microscopy;
- optical saturable absorption;
- photochemistry;
- toxicology;
- 87.17.Jj;
- 87.18.Gh;
- 87.16.dp;
- 87.16.Uv;
- 87.16.Mq;
- Cell locomotion;
- chemotaxis and related directed motion;
- Cell-cell communication;
- collective behavior of motile cells;
- Transport including channels pores and lateral diffusion;
- Active transport processes;
- ion channels;
- Morphology of nerve cells