Image Processing Protocol for the Analysis of the Diffusion and Cluster Size of Membrane Receptors by Fluorescence Microscopy

Summary

Here, we present a protocol for single particle tracking image analysis that allows quantitative evaluation of diffusion coefficients, types of motion and cluster sizes of single particles detected by fluorescence microscopy.

Abstract

Particle tracking on a video sequence and the posterior analysis of their trajectories is nowadays a common operation in many biological studies. Using the analysis of cell membrane receptor clusters as a model, we present a detailed protocol for this image analysis task using Fiji (ImageJ) and Matlab routines to: 1) define regions of interest and design masks adapted to these regions; 2) track the particles in fluorescence microscopy videos; 3) analyze the diffusion and intensity characteristics of selected tracks. The quantitative analysis of the diffusion coefficients, types of motion, and cluster size obtained by fluorescence microscopy and image processing provides a valuable tool to objectively determine particle dynamics and the consequences of modifying environmental conditions. In this article we present detailed protocols for the analysis of these features. The method described here not only allows single-molecule tracking detection, but also automates the estimation of lateral diffusion parameters at the cell membrane, classifies the type of trajectory and allows complete analysis thus overcoming the difficulties in quantifying spot size over its entire trajectory at the cell membrane.

Introduction

Membrane proteins embedded in the lipid bilayer are in continuous movement due to thermal diffusion. Their dynamics are essential to regulate cell responses, as intermolecular interactions allow formation of complexes that vary in size from monomers to oligomers and influence the stability of signaling complexes. Elucidating the mechanisms controlling protein dynamics is thus a new challenge in cell biology, necessary to understand signal transduction pathways and to identify unanticipated cell functions.

Some optical methods have been developed to study these interactions in living cells¹. Among these, total interna....

Protocol

1. Preparation of Biological Samples

1. Grow Jurkat cells in RPMI 1640 medium supplemented with 10% FCS, NaPyr and L-glutamine (complete RPMI). Electroporate Jurkat cells (20 x 10⁶ cells/400 µL of RPMI 1640 with 10% FCS) with a monomeric GFP-labelled chemokine receptor vector (CXCR4-AcGFP, 20 μg) to allow its detection using fluorescence microscopy.
   NOTE: It is possible to use other monomeric fluorescent proteins such as mCherry, mScarlet, etc.
2. 24 h after transfection analyze cells in a flow cytometer to determine both cell viability and CXCR4-AcGFP expression.
3. Select cells expressing low CXCR4-....

Results

The use of this protocol allows the automated tracking of particles detected in fluorescence microscopy movies and the analysis of their dynamic characteristics. Initially, cells are transfected with the fluorescently-coupled protein to be tracked. The appropriate level of receptors presents on the cell surface that allows SPT is obtained by cell sorting (Figure 1). Selected cells are analyzed by TIRF microscopy that generates videos in a format that can be s.......

Discussion

The described method is easy to perform even without having any previous experience working with Matlab. However, Matlab routines require extremely accuracy with the nomenclature of the different commands and the localization of the different folders employed by the program. In the tracking analysis routine (step 3), multiple parameters can be modified. The "Setting Gaussian-Mixture Model Fitting" window (step 3.8) controls how U-track will detect single particles on the video. This is done by fitting a Gaussian mixture .......

Materials

List of materials used in this article

Name	Company	Catalog Number	Comments
Human Jurkat cells	ATCC	CRL-10915	Human T cell line. Any other cell type can be analyzed with this software
pAcGFPm-N1 (PT3719-5)DNA3GFP	Clontech	632469	Different fluorescent proteins can be followed and analyzed with this routine
Gene Pulse X Cell electroporator	BioRad		We use 280 V, 975 mF, for Jurkat cells.  Use the transfection method best working in your hands.
Cytomics FC 500 flow cytometer	Beckman Coulter
MoFlo Astrios Cell Sorter	Beckman Coulter		Depending on the level of transfection, cell sorting may not be required.  You can also employ cells with stable expression of adequate levels of the receptor of interest.
Dako Qifikit	DakoCytomation	K0078	Used for quantification the number of receptors in the cell surface.
Glass bottom microwell dishes	MatTek corporation	P35G-1.5-10-C
Human Fibronectin from plasma	Sigma-Aldrich	F0895
Recombinant human CXCL12	PeproTech	300928A
Inverted Leica AM TIRF	Leica
EM-CCD camera	Andor	DU 885-CSO-#10-VP
MATLAB	The MathWorks, Natick, MA
U-Track2 software	Danuser Laboratory
ImageJ	NIH		https://imagej.nih.gov/ij/
FiJi	FiJI		https://imagej.net/Fiji)
u-Track2 software			Matlab tool.  For installing, download .zip file from the web page (http://lccb.hms.harvard.edu/software.html) and uncompress the file in a directory of your choice
GraphPad Prism	GraphPad software