title: Scanning image correlation spectroscopy.
abstract: Molecular interactions are at the origin of life. How molecules get at different locations in the cell and how they locate their partners is a major and partially unresolved question in biology that is paramount to signaling. Spatio-temporal correlations of fluctuating fluorescently tagged molecules reveal how they move, interact, and bind in the different cellular compartments. Methods based on fluctuations represent a remarkable technical advancement in biological imaging. Here we discuss image analysis methods based on spatial and temporal correlation of fluctuations, raster image correlation spectroscopy, number and brightness, and spatial cross-correlations that give us information about how individual molecules move in cells and interact with partners at the single molecule level. These methods can be implemented with a standard laser scanning microscope and produce a cellular level spatio-temporal map of molecular interactions.
authors.affiliation: Laboratory for Fluorescence Dynamics, University of California, Irvine, CA, USA. mdigman@uci.edu
authors.forename: Michelle A
authors.initials: MA
authors.lastname: Digman
authors.forename: Enrico
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Gratton
mesh_terms: D058948:Cell Tracking / Q000379:methods*; D036681:Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching / Q000379:methods; D031541:Fluorescence Resonance Energy Transfer / Q000379:methods; D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins; D006801:Humans; D006816:Huntington Disease / Q000175:diagnosis; D018613:Microscopy, Confocal / Q000379:methods; D056004:Molecular Dynamics Simulation; D013050:Spectrometry, Fluorescence / Q000379:methods*
chemical_list: D049452:Green Fluorescent Proteins