Section: New Results

Quantifying the spatial distribution of intracellular events

Participants : Thierry Pécot, Charles Kervrann.

Figure 4. Overview of QuantEv approach.

Automated processing of fluorescence microscopy data allows quantifying cell phenotypes in an objective and reproducible way. However, most computational methods are based on the complex combination of heterogeneous features such as statistical, geometrical, morphological and frequency properties, which makes difficult to draw definitive biological conclusions. Additionally, most experimental designs, especially at single cell level, pool together data coming from replicated experiments of a given condition, neglecting the biological variability between individual cells. To address these issues, we developed a generic and non-parametric framework (QuantEv) to study the spatio-temporal distribution of moving Rab6 membranes and the effect of actin disruption on Rab11 trafficking in coordination with cell shape. The main advantage of QuantEv is to process robustly and accurately homogeneous and heterogeneous populations. As demonstration, we compared the results obtained by QuantEv with those from kernel density maps, for Rab6 positive membranes on crossbow- and disk-shaped cells.

Collaborators: Jean Salamero, Jérôme Boulanger and Liu Zengzhen (UMR 144 CNRS-Institut Curie).