title: Correlated fluorescence lifetime and spectral measurements in living cells.
abstract: Studies of proteins' interaction in cells by FRET can take benefit from two important photo-physical properties describing fluorescent proteins: fluorescence emission spectrum and fluorescence lifetime. These properties provide specific and complementary information about the tagged proteins and their environment. However, none of them taken individually can completely quantify the involved fluorophore characteristics due to their multiparametric dependency with molecular environment, experimental conditions, and interpretation complexity. A solution to get a better understanding of the biological process implied at the cellular level is to combine the spectral and temporal fluorescence data acquired simultaneously at every cell region under investigation. We present the SLiM-SPRC160, an original temporal/spectral acquisition system for simultaneous lifetime measurements in 16 spectral channels directly attached to the descanned port of a confocal microscope with two-photon excitation. It features improved light throughput, enabling low-level excitation and minimum invasivity in living cells studies. To guarantee a fairly good level of accuracy and reproducibility in the measurements of fluorescence lifetime and spectra on living cells, we propose a rigorous protocol for running experiments with this new equipment that preserves cell viability. The usefulness of SLiM approach for the precise determination of overlapping fluorophores is illustrated with the study of known solutions of rhodamine. Then, we describe reliable FRET experiments in imaging mode realized in living cells using this protocol. We also demonstrate the benefit of localized fluorescence spectrum-lifetime acquisitions for the dynamic study of fluorescent proteins. proteins.
authors.affiliation: Biophotonique Cellulaire Fonctionnelle, FRE 2963, Institut de Recherche Interdisciplinaire, 59021 Lille Cedex, France.
authors.forename: Corentin
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Spriet
authors.forename: Dave
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Trinel
authors.forename: François
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Waharte
authors.forename: Didier
authors.initials: D
authors.lastname: Deslee
authors.forename: Bernard
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Vandenbunder
authors.forename: Jacques
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Barbillat
authors.forename: Laurent
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Héliot
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D016466:CHO Cells; D006224:Cricetinae; D003412:Cricetulus; D031541:Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer / Q000379:methods*; D008164:Luminescent Proteins / Q000032:analysis*; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal / Q000379:methods; D008856:Microscopy, Fluorescence / Q000379:methods; D011485:Protein Binding; D013057:Spectrum Analysis
chemical_list: D008164:Luminescent Proteins