Abstract
The transport and targeting of internalized molecules to distinct intracellular organelles/compartments can prove challenging to visualize clearly, which can contribute to some of the difficulties associated with these studies. By combining several approaches, we show how the trafficking and processing of photoreceptor outer segments in the phagosome and autophagy-lysosomal pathways of the retinal pigment epithelium (RPE) can easily be quantified and visualized as 3D-reconstructed images. This protocol takes advantage of new developments in microscopy and image-analysis software which has the potential to help better understand dynamic intracellular processes that underlie RPE dysfunction associated with irreversible blinding diseases such as age-related macular degeneration. The method described herein can also be used to study the trafficking and co-localization of different intracellular cargos in other cell types and tissues.
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Acknowledgments
We thank our colleagues Dr. David A. Johnston and Dr. Anton Page (Biomedical Imaging Unit, University of Southampton) for their expertise in light/confocal and ultrastructural microscopy, Ms. Savannah A. Lynn (Faculty of Medicine, University of Southampton) for her expertise in cell culture and imaging, and Dr. David A. Tumbarello (Biological Sciences, University of Southampton) for his expertise in membrane trafficking and cell signaling. This work was funded by support from the Macular Society, UK, and the Gift of Sight Appeal.
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Ratnayaka, J.A., Keeling, E., Chatelet, D.S. (2019). Study of Intracellular Cargo Trafficking and Co-localization in the Phagosome and Autophagy-Lysosomal Pathways of Retinal Pigment Epithelium (RPE) Cells. In: Turksen, K. (eds) Imaging and Tracking Stem Cells. Methods in Molecular Biology, vol 2150. Humana, New York, NY. https://doi.org/10.1007/7651_2019_223
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/7651_2019_223
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