Pair correlation microscopy of intracellular molecular transport

Pair correlation microscopy is a unique approach to fluorescence correlation spectroscopy that can track the long-range diffusive route of a population of fluorescent molecules in live cells with respect to intracellular architecture. This method is based on the use of a pair correlation function (pCF) that, through spatiotemporal comparison of fluctuations in fluorescence intensity recorded throughout a microscope data acquisition, enables changes in a molecule’s arrival time to be spatially mapped and statistically quantified. In this protocol, we present guidelines for the measurement and analysis of line scan pair correlation microscopy data acquired on a confocal laser scanning microscope (CLSM), which will enable users to extract a fluorescent molecule’s transport pattern throughout a living cell, and then quantify the molecular accessibility of intracellular barriers encountered or the mode of diffusion governing a molecular trafficking event. Finally, we demonstrate how this protocol can be extended to a two-channel line scan acquisition that, when coupled with a cross pCF calculation, enables a fluorescent molecule’s transport pattern to be selectively tracked as a function of complex formation with a spectrally distinct fluorescent ligand. For a skilled user of a CLSM, the line scan data acquisition and analysis described in this protocol will take ~1–2 d, depending on the sample and the number of experiments to be processed.