What is Fluorescence Recovery After Photobleaching (FRAP)?

FRAP is a microscopy technique that scientists use to determine the mobility of proteins inside living cells. In this video, Jayme Dyer explains how FRAP works, and how scientists used FRAP to better understand how cells crawl!

The paper discussed in this video is:

D. Raz-Ben Aroush, et al., Actin Turnover in Lamellipodial Fragments. Current Biology 27, 2963-2973.e14 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.08...

Video & Image Credits:

Video of crawling keratocyte by E. L. Barnhart, K.-C. Lee, K. Keren, A. Mogilner, J. A. Theriot, An Adhesion-Dependent Switch between Mechanisms That Determine Motile Cell Shape. PLOS Biology 9, e1001059 (2011). CC-BY

Scanning Electron Micrograph of actin in lamellipodium by T. M. Svitkina, G. G. Borisy, Arp2/3 complex and actin depolymerizing factor/cofilin in dendritic organization and treadmilling of actin filament array in lamellipodia. J Cell Biol 145, 1009–1026 (1999). CC-BY NC SA, Cell Image Library accession number 24801

Still image of GFP-labeled F-actin in neonatal cardiomyoctyes by Ps1415 CC-BY SA 4.0

Video of labeled actin in live mouse embryonic fibroblast cell from G. M. Rivera, et al., Requirement of Nck adaptors for actin dynamics and cell migration stimulated by platelet-derived growth factor B. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 103, 9536–9541 (2006). Cell Image Library accession number 31939

Hammock Fight music by Kevin MacLeod is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 license.

Extra Special Thanks to Drone Flight Engineer, Wil Weldon
Extra Special Thanks to Confocal Microscopist, Kyle Moran

Special thanks to these “protein actor” volunteers:
BRIDGET BELL
CLIFF DYER
JULIA ELMAN
JERRY G. GARFUNKEL-VARGAS
JOHN MURPHY
AMY O’REGAN
BROOKE PHILPOTT
DEREK ROWE
HENRY SOLÓRZANO
ARMAN TAHMASEB
KAMBIZ TAHMASEB
TALA TAHMASEB
BORNA ZAREIESFANDABADI

This video is copyright Jayme Dyer 2021, published under the Creative Commons CC-BY SA 4.0 license.

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