Mitochondrial swelling measurement in situ by optimized spatial filtering: astrocyte-neuron differences.

ABSTRACT: Mitochondrial swelling is a hallmark of mitochondrial dysfunction, and is an indicator of the opening of the mitochondrial permeability transition pore. We introduce here a novel quantitative in situ single-cell assay of mitochondrial swelling based on standard wide-field or confocal fluorescence microscopy. This morphometric technique quantifies the relative diameter of mitochondria labeled by targeted fluorescent proteins. Fluorescence micrographs are spatial bandpass filtered transmitting either high or low spatial frequencies. Mitochondrial swelling is measured by the fluorescence intensity ratio of the high- to low-frequency filtered copy of the same image. We have termed this fraction the "thinness ratio". The filters are designed by numeric optimization for sensitivity. We character

SUBMITTER: Gerencser AA 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC2517017 | biostudies-literature | 2008 Sep

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature