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Updated: Nov 23, 2025
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AMEBaS: Automatic Midline Extraction and Background Subtraction of Ratiometric Fluorescence Time-Lapses of Polarized Single Cells
Published on: June 23, 2023
685
Quantitative and dynamic cell polarity tracking in plant cells.
Yan Gong1, Rachel Varnau1, Eva-Sophie Wallner1
1Department of Biology, Stanford University, Stanford, CA, 94305, USA.
The New Phytologist
|December 30, 2020
Summary
A new semi-automated pipeline, Polarity Measurement (Pome), quantifies cell polarity. Pome reveals new insights into the asynchronous and less dependent nature of polarity proteins during plant cell divisions.
Area of Science:
- Cell Biology
- Developmental Biology
- Plant Science
Background:
- Quantifying spatiotemporal distribution of polarized proteins is crucial for understanding cell-fate determination.
- Manual measurements are time-consuming and limit statistical analysis.
Purpose of the Study:
- Introduce Polarity Measurement (Pome), a semi-automated pipeline for quantifying cell polarity.
- Apply Pome to analyze protein distribution in plant developmental contexts.
Main Methods:
- Developed a semi-automated computational pipeline named Pome.
- Applied Pome to analyze polarity protein distribution in Arabidopsis thaliana and Brachypodium distachyon stomatal lineages.
Main Results:
- Pome analysis showed BASL and BRXL2 proteins are more asynchronous and less mutually dependent during Arabidopsis stomatal lineage divisions than previously thought.
- Pome revealed MAPKKK BdYDA1 is segregated and polarized following asymmetrical divisions in Brachypodium distachyon.
Conclusions:
- Pome is a versatile tool for quantifying cell polarity.
- Pome facilitates uncovering new mechanisms of cell polarity, especially when combined with other techniques.
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