title: Label-free intracellular transport measured by spatial light interference microscopy.
abstract: We show that applying the Laplace operator to a speckle-free quantitative phase image reveals an unprecedented level of detail in cell structure, without the gradient artifacts associated with differential interference contrast microscopy, or photobleaching and phototoxicity limitations common in fluorescence microscopy. This method, referred to as Laplace phase microscopy, is an efficient tool for tracking vesicles and organelles in living cells. The principle is demonstrated by tracking organelles in cardiomyocytes and vesicles in neurites of hippocampal neurons, which to our knowledge are the first label-free diffusion measurements of the organelles in such cells.
authors.affiliation: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, Beckman Institute for Advanced Science & Technology, Urbana, Illinois 61801, USA.
authors.forename: Zhuo
authors.initials: Z
authors.lastname: Wang
authors.forename: Larry
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Millet
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Chan
authors.forename: Huafeng
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Ding
authors.forename: Martha U
authors.initials: MU
authors.lastname: Gillette
authors.forename: Rashid
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Bashir
authors.forename: Gabriel
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Popescu
mesh_terms: D001692:Biological Transport / Q000502:physiology*; D004867:Equipment Design; D019544:Equipment Failure Analysis; D007089:Image Enhancement / Q000295:instrumentation*; D021621:Imaging, Three-Dimensional / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008029:Lighting / Q000295:instrumentation*; D008858:Microscopy, Phase-Contrast / Q000295:instrumentation*; D013194:Staining and Labeling