0000000000208259
AUTHOR
Michelle A. Digman
Detecting Protein Aggregation on Cells Surface: Concanavalin A Oligomers Formation
A number of neurodegenerative diseases involve protein aggregation and amyloid formation. Recently evidence has emerged indicating small-transient prefibrillar oligomers as the primary pathogenic agents. Noteworthy, strict analogies exist between the behaviour of cells in culture treated with misfolded non-pathogenic proteins and in pathologic conditions, this instance together with the observation that the oligomers and fibrils are characterised by common structural features suggest that common mechanisms for cytotoxicity could exists and have to be perused in common interactions involved in aggregation.We here report an experimental study on ConcanavalinA (ConA) aggregation and its effect…
Fluctuation Methods To Study Protein Aggregation in Live Cells: Concanavalin A Oligomers Formation
Prefibrillar oligomers of proteins are suspected to be the primary pathogenic agents in several neurodegenerative diseases. A key approach for elucidating the pathogenic mechanisms is to probe the existence of oligomers directly in living cells. In this work, we were able to monitor the process of aggregation of Concanavalin A in live cells. We used number and brightness analysis, two-color cross number and brightness analysis, and Raster image correlation spectroscopy to obtain the number of molecules, aggregation state, and diffusion coefficient as a function of time and cell location. We observed that binding of Concanavalin A to the membrane and the formation of small aggregates paralle…
Viral highway to nucleus exposed by image correlation analyses.
AbstractParvoviral genome translocation from the plasma membrane into the nucleus is a coordinated multistep process mediated by capsid proteins. We used fast confocal microscopy line scan imaging combined with image correlation methods including auto-, pair- and cross-correlation, and number and brightness analysis, to study the parvovirus entry pathway at the single-particle level in living cells. Our results show that the endosome-associated movement of virus particles fluctuates from fast to slow. Fast transit of single cytoplasmic capsids to the nuclear envelope is followed by slow movement of capsids and fast diffusion of capsid fragments in the nucleoplasm. The unique combination of …
Determination of particle number and brightness using a laser scanning confocal microscope operating in the analog mode
We describe a method to obtain the brightness and number of molecules at each pixel of an image stack obtained with a laser scanning microscope. The method is based on intensity fluctuations due to the diffusion of molecules in a pixel. For a detector operating in the analog mode, the variance must be proportional to the intensity. Once this constant has been calibrated, we use the ratio between the variance and the intensity to derive the particle brightness. Then, from the ratio of the intensity to the brightness we obtain the average number of particles in the pixel. We show that the method works with molecules in solution and that the results are comparable to those obtained with fluctu…