Nonequilibrium fluctuations in metaphase spindles: polarized light microscopy, image registration, and correlation functions

Jan Brugués; Daniel J. Needleman

doi:10.1117/12.848223

12 February 2010 Nonequilibrium fluctuations in metaphase spindles: polarized light microscopy, image registration, and correlation functions

Jan Brugués, Daniel J. Needleman

Author Affiliations +

Proceedings Volume 7618, Emerging Liquid Crystal Technologies V; 76180L (2010) https://doi.org/10.1117/12.848223
Event: SPIE OPTO, 2010, San Francisco, California, United States

Abstract

Metaphase spindles are highly dynamic, nonequilibrium, steady-state structures. We study the internal fluctuations of spindles by computing spatio-temporal correlation functions of movies obtained from quantitative polarized light microscopy. These correlation functions are only physically meaningful if corrections are made for the net motion of the spindle. We describe our image registration algorithm in detail and we explore its robustness. Finally, we discuss the expression used for the estimation of the correlation function in terms of the nematic order of the microtubules which make up the spindle. Ultimately, studying the form of these correlation functions will provide a quantitative test of the validity of coarse-grained models of spindle structure inspired from liquid crystal physics.

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Jan Brugués and Daniel J. Needleman "Nonequilibrium fluctuations in metaphase spindles: polarized light microscopy, image registration, and correlation functions", Proc. SPIE 7618, Emerging Liquid Crystal Technologies V, 76180L (12 February 2010); https://doi.org/10.1117/12.848223

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