Image J can be downloaded for free from here . This guide can also be downloaded as a complete PDF here: Measuring Cell Fluorescence using ImageJ
Here is a very simple guide for determining the level of fluorescence in a given region (e.g nucleus)
Select the cell of interest using any of the drawing/selection tools (i.e. rectangle, circle, polygon or freeform)
From the Analyze menu select “set measurements”. Make sure you have AREA, INTEGRATED DENSITY and MEAN GRAY VALUE selected (the rest can be ignored).
Now select “Measure” from the analyze menu or hit cmd+m (apple). You should now see a popup box with a stack of values for that first cell.
Now go and select a region next to your cell that has no fluroence, this will be your background. NB: the size is not important. If you want to be super accurate here take 3+ selections from around the cell.
Repeat this step for the other cells in the field of view that you want to measure.
Once you have finished, select all the data in the Results window, and copy (cmd+c) and paste (cmd+v) into a new excel worksheet (or similar program)
Use this formula to calculate the corrected total cell fluorescence (CTCF). NB: You can use excel to perform this calculation for you. CTCF = Integrated Density – (Area of selected cell X Mean fluorescence of background readings)
Make a graph and your done. Notice that in this example that the rounded up mitotic cell appears to have a much higher level of staining, but this is actually due to its smaller size, which concentrates the staining in a smaller space. So if you just used the raw integrated density you would have data suggesting that the flattened cell has less staining then the rounded up one, when in reality they have a similar level of fluorescence.
How to Cite this if you wold like to:
We have used this method in these papers:
McCloy, R. A., Rogers, S., Caldon, C. E., Lorca, T., Castro, A., and Burgess, A. (2014) Partial inhibition of Cdk1 in G 2 phase overrides the SAC and decouples mitotic events. Cell Cycle 13, 1400–1412 [Link] Burgess A, Vigneron S, Brioudes E, Labbé J-C, Lorca T & Castro A (2010) Loss of human Greatwall results in G2 arrest and multiple mitotic defects due to deregulation of the cyclin B-Cdc2/PP2A balance. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107: 12564–12569
But you can also find a similar method published here:
Gavet O & Pines J (2010) Progressive activation of CyclinB1-Cdk1 coordinates entry to mitosis. Dev Cell 18: 533-543
And here:
Potapova TA, Sivakumar S, Flynn JN, Li R & Gorbsky GJ (2011) Mitotic progression becomes irreversible in prometaphase and collapses when Wee1 and Cdc25 are inhibited. Mol Biol Cell 22: 1191–1206
And my apologies to any others that I have not mentioned.
Comments