ESTIMATING THE DURATION OF ENDOCYTIC EVENTS

Total internal reflection fluorescence microscopy (TIRPM) allows to image endocytosis in-vivo with exquisite spatial-temporal resolution. Regions covered by endocytic fluorescent-tagged proteins overlap forming random clumps of different sizes, shapes and durations. We model the areas associated with endocytic events by means of temporal random sets and estimate the duration distribution of endocytic events from the covariance function. A simulation study is performed to show the accuracy of the proposed estimator. Results on image sequences of fluorescently-labeled clathrin proteins showed this is a robust screening method which will greatly facilitate future research in vesicle exo-endocytosis