Biophysical Journal
Volume 72, Issue 4, April 1997, Pages 1744-1753
Journal home page for Biophysical Journal

Research Article
Single-particle tracking: the distribution of diffusion coefficients

https://doi.org/10.1016/S0006-3495(97)78820-9Get rights and content
Under an Elsevier user license
open archive

In single-particle tracking experiments, the diffusion coefficient D may be measured from the trajectory of an individual particle in the cell membrane. The statistical distribution of single-trajectory diffusion coefficients is examined by Monte Carlo calculations. The width of this distribution may be useful as a measure of the heterogeneity of the membrane and as a test of models of hindered diffusion in the membrane. For some models, the distribution of the short-range diffusion coefficient is much narrower than the observed distribution for proteins diffusing in cell membranes. To aid in the analysis of single-particle tracking measurements, the distribution of D is examined for various definitions of D and for various trajectory lengths.

Cited by (0)