Mass Balance Imaging: A Phase Portrait Analysis for Characterizing Growth Kinetics of Biomolecular Condensates

Research output: Contribution to book/Conference proceedings/Anthology/ReportChapter in book/Anthology/ReportContributedpeer-review

Contributors

  • Jan Geisler - , Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (Author)
  • Victoria Tianjing Yan - , Chair of Biophysics, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics (Author)
  • Stephan Grill - , Clusters of Excellence PoL: Physics of Life, Biotechnology Center, Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Center for Systems Biology Dresden (CSBD) (Author)
  • Arjun Narayanan - , Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics, Center for Systems Biology Dresden (CSBD), Max-Planck-Institute for the Physics of Complex Systems (Author)

Abstract

Biomolecular condensation has emerged as a key organizing principle governing the formation of membraneless cellular assemblies. Revealing the mechanism of formation of biomolecular condensates requires the quantitative examination of their growth kinetics. Here, we introduce mass balance imaging (MBI) as a general method to study compositional growth dynamics based on fluorescent images of multicomponent clusters. MBI allows the visualization and measurement of composition-dependent growth rates of biomolecular condensates and other assemblies. We provide a computational pipeline and demonstrate the applicability of our method by investigating cortical assemblies containing N-WASP (WSP-1) and F-actin that appear during oocyte cortex activation in C. elegans. In general, the method can be broadly implemented to identify interactions that underlie growth kinetics of multicomponent assemblies in vivo and in vitro.

Details

Original languageEnglish
Title of host publicationPhase-Separated Biomolecular Condensates
EditorsHuan-Xiang Zhou, Jan-Hendrik Spille, Priya R. Banerjee
Place of PublicationNY
PublisherHumana Press
Pages413-424
Number of pages12
ISBN (electronic)978-1-0716-2663-4
ISBN (print)978-1-0716-2665-8, 978-1-0716-2662-7
Publication statusPublished - 14 Oct 2023
Peer-reviewedYes

Publication series

SeriesMethods in Molecular Biology (MIMB; Vol. 2563)
Volume2563
ISSN1064-3745

External IDs

PubMed 36227486

Keywords

ASJC Scopus subject areas

Keywords

  • Automated image analysis, Biomolecular condensates, Colocalization, Growth kinetics, Mass balance imaging, Membraneless organelles, Multicomponent clustering, Phase portrait analysis, Phase separation

Library keywords