PT  - JOURNAL ARTICLE
AU  - Soorya Pradeep
AU  - Thomas A. Zangle
TI  - Quantitative phase velocimetry measures bulk intracellular transport of cell mass during the cell cycle
AID  - 10.1101/2021.08.04.452408
DP  - 2021 Jan 01
TA  - bioRxiv
PG  - 2021.08.04.452408
4099  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/10/07/2021.08.04.452408.short
4100  - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2021/10/07/2021.08.04.452408.full
AB  - Transport of mass within cells helps maintain homeostasis and is disrupted by disease and stress. Here, we develop quantitative phase velocimetry (QPV) as a label-free approach to make the invisible flow of mass within cells visible and quantifiable. We benchmark our approach against alternative image registration methods, a theoretical error model, and synthetic data. Our method tracks not just individual labeled particles or molecules, but the entire flow of bulk material through the cell. This enables us to measure diffusivity within distinct cell compartments using a single approach, which we use here for direct comparison of nuclear and cytoplasmic diffusivity. As a label-free method, QPV can be used for long-term tracking to capture dynamics through the cell cycle.Competing Interest StatementThe authors have declared no competing interest.