The object of this thesis is to present two novel applications of Spatiotemporal Image Correlation Spectroscopy (STICS) to biological systems. STICS is a technique which uses the correlations in pixel intensity fluctuations of an image time series, captured under fluorescence microscopy, to measure the speed and direction of a flowing population of fluorescently labeled molecules. The method was first applied to measure the dynamics of transport vesicles inside growing pollen tubes of lily flowers. The measured vector maps allowed to confirm the presence of actin filaments along the periphery of the tubes, as well as the presence of a reverse-fountain pattern in the apical region. In a second set of experiments, STICS was used to measure the retrograde flow of filamentous actin in migrating chick DRG neuronal growth cones. These results serve as proof of principle that STICS can be used to probe the response of the growth cone cytoskeleton to external chemical cues.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:LACETR/oai:collectionscanada.gc.ca:QMM.111550 |
| Date | January 2008 |
| Creators | Vaillancourt, Benoit. |
| Publisher | McGill University |
| Source Sets | Library and Archives Canada ETDs Repository / Centre d'archives des thèses électroniques de Bibliothèque et Archives Canada |
| Language | English |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Coverage | Master of Science (Department of Physics.) |
| Rights | All items in eScholarship@McGill are protected by copyright with all rights reserved unless otherwise indicated. |
| Relation | alephsysno: 003163641, proquestno: AAIMR66730, Theses scanned by UMI/ProQuest. |
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