The subject of the PhD thesis is the application of a transmission digital holographic microscope (DHM) which was designed and constructed in the Laboratory of optical microscopy at the IPE BUT for the research of live cells dynamics. First part of the work is concerned with theoretical description of the microscope imaging properties dependent on the coherence of illumination. It is supplemented with experiments of imaging of a model and a real biological specimen. The following part describes construction modifications and innovations of the microscope and its equipment that enabled the utilization of the microscope for live cells observations. In the experimental part the methodology of live cells preparation and DHM imaging was worked out. The methodology was verified by the observation of cell dynamics during an apoptosis induced by the cytostaticum cis-platinum. Further experiments examined the dynamics of live cells in standard conditions and during a deprivation stimulus. A novel method of holographically reconstructed phase, named \uva{dynamic phase differences}, was set up to evaluate quantitative changes of cell mass distribution during the experiments. Depending on the degree of malignancy and density of cell outgrowth, various schemes of cancer cells behaviour during a specific reaction were revealed using this method. For the quantitative analysis of the DHM phase imaging, a suitable statistical characteristic and an interpretation of the measured data were proposed. Both of them were successfully applied for the comparison of cell motility of two cell types: parental and progeny cell lines. On the basis of the proposed processing, hypotheses describing the reaction mechanism of tumour cells to stress life conditions were established. In the conclusions we summarize our findings and suggestions for the construction and the applications of a new generation of the transmission DHM.

This doctoral thesis deals with biophysical interpretation of quantitative phase imaging (QPI) gained with coherence-controlled holographic microscope (CCHM). In the first part methods evaluating information from QPI such as analysis of shape and dynamical characteristics of segmented objects as well as evaluation of the phase information itself are described. In addition, a method of dynamic phase differences (DPD) is designed to allow more detailed monitoring of cell mass translocations. All of these methods are used in biological applications. In an extensive study of various types of cell death, QPI information is compared with flow cytometry data, and preferably a combination of QPI and fluorescence microscopy is used. The DPD method is used to study mass translocations inside the cell during osmotic events. The simplified DPD method is applied to investigate the mechanism of tumor cell movement in collagen gels.