Mass Balance Imaging: A Phase Portrait Analysis for Characterizing Growth Kinetics of Biomolecular Condensates

Jan Geisler, Victoria Tianjing Yan, Stephan Grill, Arjun Narayanan

Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceedingChapter

Abstract

Biomolecular condensation has emerged as a key organizing principle governing the formation of membraneless cellular assemblies. Revealing the mechanism of formation of biomolecular condensates requires the quantitative examination of their growth kinetics. Here, we introduce mass balance imaging (MBI) as a general method to study compositional growth dynamics based on fluorescent images of multicomponent clusters. MBI allows the visualization and measurement of composition-dependent growth rates of biomolecular condensates and other assemblies. We provide a computational pipeline and demonstrate the applicability of our method by investigating cortical assemblies containing N-WASP (WSP-1) and F-actin that appear during oocyte cortex activation in C. elegans. In general, the method can be broadly implemented to identify interactions that underlie growth kinetics of multicomponent assemblies in vivo and in vitro.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Title of host publicationMethods in Molecular Biology
PublisherHumana Press Inc.
Pages413-424
Number of pages12
DOIs
StatePublished - 2023

Publication series

NameMethods in Molecular Biology
Volume2563
ISSN (Print)1064-3745
ISSN (Electronic)1940-6029

Keywords

  • Automated image analysis
  • Biomolecular condensates
  • Colocalization
  • Growth kinetics
  • Mass balance imaging
  • Membraneless organelles
  • Multicomponent clustering
  • Phase portrait analysis
  • Phase separation

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • Molecular Biology
  • Genetics

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