Using quantitative fluorescence microscopy to probe organelle assembly and membrane trafficking.

With current light microscopy and laboratory-level computational capability, many questions in organelle assembly and membrane trafficking that were once treated in a qualitative manner can now be treated quantitatively. We present here an overview of the principles involved in doing quantitative fluorescence microscopy. We illustrate these with examples drawn from our work with the Golgi apparatus and endosomes in cultured mammalian cells. The principles themselves can be applied to any system.