Real-time imaging of exocytotic mucin release and swelling in Calu-3 cells using acridine orange.

ABSTRACT: Mucus secretion is the first-line of defence against the barrage of irritants inhaled into human lungs, but abnormally thick and viscous mucus results in many respiratory diseases. Understanding the processes underlying mucus pathology is hampered, in part, by lack of appropriate experimental tools for labeling and studying mucin granule secretion from live cells with high sensitivity and temporal resolution. In this report we present original spectroscopic properties of acridine orange (AO) which could be utilized to study granule release and mucin swelling with various advanced fluorescence imaging approaches. Low concentration (<200 μM) AO solutions presented absorption maximum at 494 nm, emission maximum at 525 nm and only ∼1.76 ns fluorescence lifetime. By contrast at high concentrati

SUBMITTER: Shumilov D 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4780354 | biostudies-literature | 2014 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature