A3 Refereed book chapter or chapter in a compilation book
Filopodia quantification using filoquant
Authors: Guillaume Jacquemet, Hellyeh Hamidi, Johanna Ivaska
Editors: E. Rebollo, M. Bosch (eds)
Publisher: Humana Press Inc.
Publication year: 2019
Book title : Computer Optimized Microscopy. Methods in Molecular Biology
Journal name in source: Methods in Molecular Biology
Series title: Methods in Molecular Biology
Volume: 2040
First page : 359
Last page: 373
Number of pages: 15
ISBN: 978-1-4939-9685-8
eISBN: 978-1-4939-9686-5
ISSN: 1064-3745
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9686-5_16
Filopodia are fingerlike membrane protrusions that are extended by cells in vitro and in vivo. Due to important roles in sensing the extracellular microenvironment, filopodia and filopodia-like protrusions have been implicated in numerous biological processes including epithelial sheet zippering in development and wound healing and in cancer progression. Recently, there has been an explosion in the number of software available to analyze specific features of cell protrusions with the aim of gaining mechanistic insights into the action of filopodia and filopodia-like structures. In this methods chapter, we highlight an open-access software called FiloQuant that has been developed to specifically quantify the length, density, and dynamics of filopodia and filopodia-like structures from in vitro and in vivo generated samples. We provide step-by-step protocols on (i) how to install FiloQuant in the ImageJ platform (Fiji), (ii) how to quantify filopodia and filopodia-like protrusions from single images using FiloQuant, and (iii) how to track filopodial protrusions from live-cell imaging experiments using FiloQuant and TrackMate.