Variable-angle epifluorescence microscopy characterizes protein dynamics in the vicinity of plasma membrane in plant cells

BACKGROUND: The assembly of protein complexes and compositional lipid patterning act together to endow cells with the plasticity required to maintain compositional heterogeneity with respect to individual proteins. Hence, the applications for imaging protein localization and dynamics require high accuracy, particularly at high spatio-temporal level. RESULTS: We provided experimental data for the applications of Variable-Angle Epifluorescence Microscopy (VAEM) in dissecting protein dynamics in plant cells. The VAEM-based co-localization analysis took penetration depth and incident angle into consideration. Besides direct overlap of dual-color fluorescence signals, the co-localization analysis was carried out quantitatively in combination with the methodology for calculating puncta distance and protein proximity index. Besides, simultaneous VAEM tracking of cytoskeletal dynamics provided more insights into coordinated responses of actin filaments and microtubules. Moreover, lateral motility of membrane proteins was analyzed by calculating diffusion coefficients and kymograph analysis, which represented an alternative method for examining protein motility. CONCLUSION: The present study presented experimental evidence on illustrating the use of VAEM in tracking and dissecting protein dynamics, dissecting endosomal dynamics, cell structure assembly along with membrane microdomain and protein motility in intact plant cells. ELECTRONIC SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL: The online version of this article (10.1186/s12870-018-1246-0) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users.