Molecular flow quantified beyond the diffraction limit by spatiotemporal image correlation of structured illumination microscopy data

Abstract

We combine total internal reflection fluorescence structured illumination microscopy with spatiotemporal image correlation spectroscopy to quantify the flow velocities and directionality of filamentous-actin at the T cell immunological synapse. These techniques demonstrate it is possible to image retrograde flow of filamentous-actin at superresolution and provide flow quantification in the form of velocity histograms and flow vector maps. The flow was found to be retrograde and radially directed throughout the periphery of T-cells during synapse formation.

Figure 1

(a) Schematic of the TIRF SIM setup. (b) Demonstration of the doubling of spatial resolution of collected frequencies through a Fourier transform (superimposed red circle demonstrating regular spatial frequency limits). (c) SIM reconstructed image of 100-nm bead (scale bar 0.5 μm). (d) (Plotted line) Bead showing full width at half-maximum of 120 nm.

Figure 2

(a) STICS analysis, performed by isolating mobile from immobile structures through a moving average filter (i) and binning a subset of pixels into blocks of superpixels (ii); the STICS software correlates spatial fluorescence fluctuations through time (iii). The code then outputs vector maps showing directionality and flow velocities. (b) TIRF SIM image of actin flow in a T cell 5 min after contact with a stimulatory coverslip. (Zoomed regions) Retrograde actin flow at the synapse periphery. (c) Histograms showing flow speed statistics of vectors from T-cell synapses (n = 7).